Mockingjay: secret from the past
by s2009602
Summary: My version of Mockingjay. Just hope to save someone from death and to reveal some dark secret of the Capitol from the past.Better than summary and better as it goes on, I promise. Now completed. Please R&R.
1. Part 1: District 13 - Chapter 1

**I don't really like how the story goes in the third book Mockingjay and here is my version. Of course Suzanne's works are incredible but there's a lot of deaths and depression. I just hope I can save someone. Please tell me what you think so I can improve. Thanks a lot.**

**Disclaim: every rights belong to Suzanne Collins.**

**Chapter 1:**

I look around, trying to catch a glimpse of anything could tell me here once was my hometown. The Seam, the Town, the school, the mine, even the Justice Building, everything were burnt down to ashes. Except the Victor's village. I wonder why. Maybe someday a group of Capitol's reporters might come here to make a footage about Capitol's power, about the great grave of thousands people of District 12 and they would rest there.

I wander on the biggest road of town, the only road I can figure out among piles of ashes. Coal's dust of so many years mining was the main reason that made the fire go wild and destroy District 12 to the core. How irony, I think, coal kept District 12 alive and also burnt it to death. Everything around me is so strange that I just feel empty. As if it was just a lie and District 12 still exist and I'm standing at a fake stage. Suddenly I trip over a stone hidden under ashes. I reach out my hand and realize what I lost, people and things to keep me steady, my dad, my hometown, my Peeta. Oh, Peeta, I left him in that jungles, I couldn't get him out. A sharp pain cuts into my head and my chest. I stumble and have to sit down. Immediately, from the headset I was insisted to wear, my best friend Gale asks me."Katniss, are you alright? Should I come down?" His voice reminds me that I'm not alone and also don't have much time to wander here. That was such an effort to make them let me come back here. And the same effort to protect me while I'm here. I bet there is a dozen of invisible hovercraft circling overhead and ready to take me away if anything happens. And I don't want that, something I need to finish here, alone. So I straighten up and tell Gale not to worry.

I walk back to my house in Victor's Village. The houses are unscathed but the door of my house is out of its usual place. It seems like somebody had kicked it hard. I felt something pull inside my stomach. Someone was here. I take some careful steps inside and a broken vase, which Prim used to place in the living room, with dried blood on its pieces confirms my fear. I whisper to the headset."Gale, come down here, there's something I want you to take for me. It's a little too heavy for me. I'm in my house but you should walk from town." He understands what I meant right away. Just like in the old days in the woods. _Threat? Prey? Just don't startle it._ I take another step inside the living room and see things been pushed aside. I wait for a while and Gale silently walks into the house. I put my finger to my mouth and we carefully investigate the house. The food was out and I'm sure that my mother and Prim couldn't have enough time to bring them while running to the woods during the bombing. A loud hiss from the door to the yard makes me jump. Gale nearly drops a bottle he was holding. It just a…

"Buttercup!" I gasp. I can't believe his odds. Maybe to pay off his ugliness. I whisper.

"Come on, do you want to see Prim?"

Hearing her name, he throws at me another suspicious glance and decides to trust me this time. I hold him up and even pet him a little.

"Maybe it's him that ate the food." Gale says uncertainly.

"I don't think so. Let's go up stair, I need to take something anyway." I put Buttercup inside my jacket and zip it.

We go up stair. It seems that the struggling had happened only at the living room. I quickly gather my hunting bag and my dad's jacket. And right when I dash out the window, I catch a glimpse of something, not in my house but in Peeta's house. Someone with blonde hair?

"Gale!" I call and ignore Buttercup's hissing, sprinting as fast as I can to Peeta's house. Gale follows me, confusing. What am I thinking? Why am I raising my hope up?

BAM! I push the door open. The smell of bread and yeast is no longer lingering inside his house. A shadow disappears around the closet. I dash forward and snatch out the closet's door. A pile of garbage stops me. The darkness makes it hard to see the person inside. I'm stunned. Her blonde hair is tangled. Her blue eyes are lost and hurt like a prey. And her beautiful face is dirty with dried blood and dust. I feel my eyes watering, of sad or happy to see her, I don't know. I reach out my hand but she doesn't recognize me. She shakes her head and curls up to the corner.I swallow. My voice tremble.

"Madge, it's me, Katniss. Madge."

"Madge?" Gale asks in shock. He pushes me aside, a little hard but I have no time to care. He digs out the garbage and I help him. We reach to the corner. Suddenly Madge starts screaming, wailing. Gale struggles to hold her. I stroke her hair and try to shush her.

"It's me, Madge. It's Katniss. Do you remember?" I whisper. After a while, she calms down and finally sees me.

"Katniss?" She looks up and sees Gale."Gale?"

"Yes, it's me. Everything is alright, Madge." Gale says gently and slowly we bring her out. Just when I hears Gale grunts, I realize blood stains down her dress.

"Where did you hurt?" I asks.

She breaks in tears and wails."Put me down, Gale. Dirty… I'm dirty." Madge keeps wailing until we bring her to the hovercraft and sleep syrup puts her to sleep. Later at District 13, my mother walks out from her room and tells me there must be at least three men had raped her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins forever!**

**Chap 2**

Madge's incident entirely changes my usual schedule in District 13. As a refugee in District 13, I received the title soldier and a carefully planned schedule that will be tattooed on my forearm every morning. District 13 has to keep everything under strict management and that is the main reason they have survived 75 years underground and isolated.

I never did what they told me to do. At first, I was so ill in the hospital and then it seems like my head can never fully recover. My thoughts keep floating and my body responds to them and keeps wandering. One day I woke up under my bed and my mind whispered in a sing song voice."We're stuck. This will be just a new game, new arena. Happy Hunger Games!" Yes, becoming Mockingjay for the rebellion, I will be a pawn on the game between Capitol and District 13. I don't want that. All I ever want is just survival of my family, of people I love. I can fight for that, I can be a rebel for that, but I don't want to be the puppet they want me to be. I want to be myself, I want to be like what Peeta said at our first game, live and die as me. I kept reasoning until Prim found me and pulled me out.

But right now, Madge needs me so I quit wandering and spend most of my time at her bedside. I'm the only one who can stay with her more than one hour without making her panicked, scream or wail. That's because in the old days, we usually sat in comfortably silence during break time at school. My friend. Through a lot of broken conversations with her I finally make out what happened to her during the bombing. Her mother had a headache but her medicines ran out so Madge went to town by herself, part of her don't want to watch the game becoming bloody anymore. When the first bomb fell down the Hall, she knew that her family's fate had been sealed and next thing she did was running to my house. The next bomb knocked her out on the road to Victor's village. When she awoke, she crawled to my house but some Peacekeepers had come down from a hovercraft to check the house of Girl on Fire and the nightmare happened in my living room.

Clang!

I turn to see Prim's frightened face. Her spoon lies on the floor. My family and the Hawthorns are sitting at the dinner table, eating lunch when I tell them Madge's story. I pull Prim close and hold her small head. Hazelle does the same with Posy but from the beginning of the story so she can't hear it. Gale stares hard at his dish, the spoon in his hand trembles. I can understand what he's thinking. He owes Madge when she ran through storm to bring him the medicine and he couldn't save her at the bombing. And it's because of me, worrying about my family that she went to her hell.

"Will she ever be alright?" I ask my mother. As if I would ever forget about the games.

"Let's hope." She exhales softly.

Gale's communicuff breaks the intense silence at our table. It's a device to receive message from the leaders, a special privilege that Gale achieved by rescuing the citizens of 12.

"They call us to the command, Katniss." He stands up and turns to me.

We take a walk to the Command without saying anything. The anger lights up a fire in his eyes. If he ever knows who did that terrible thing to Madge, he will gradually break every bone in their body and I surely will help him. And somewhere in my head, I ask myself whether I want to have children anymore. No, never. I shake my head.

"Katniss?"

I raise my eyes and see Gale has already opened the door of the Command and people inside are looking at me. I did think after several times I refused to become their Mockingjay they would stop giving me these looks. Finally Plutarch pushes aside a woman so he can see me. He waves urgently for me to come closer. I sigh and move forward. I know what behind the crowd, a big television to show same things over and over, war footage, Snow's message, bombing District 12.

"So… Peeta, welcome back!"

I shudder as the word hits me. Peeta. My heart stops for a moment and then beats again quickly as twice as its usual speed. I repeat to make it feel more real. On the screen, there is the familiar scene of Ceasar's interview stage. And sitting on the guest chair is Peeta. I throw myself at the screen to sink into those sky-like blue eyes. He's not hurt. He's looked alright. Capitol's doctors can fix anything… if they need to, if they want to. The conversation goes on but only half of my mind pays attention to it. The other half is busy recalling times when we're together. Present and past intertwined before my eyes. He stroked my hair until I slept in the cave. He is telling about the last night at the Quell. His eyelashes were shining in the sunshine one day we drew my book together. He is arguing about my motive when I broke down the force field. Tell them that I have no idea about the rescue. His large and steady hand protected me from the nightmares. He is telling us about the wrongs of war. He told me he didn't want to be a piece of their Game at the roof of Training Center.

"So…you're calling for a cease-fire?" Caesar asks.

What? The past turns off in my mind.

"Yes. I'm calling for a cease-fire," says Peeta tiredly. "Now why don't we ask the guards to take me back to my quarters so I can build another hundred card houses?"

And within a minute, the interview ends. The room falls in silence. They are waiting for my reaction. Peeta, this is not good. Killing or war, I doubt that anyone like it but at this point, there is no coming back for the rebels. There will be blood in both ways. But there might be a brighter future if the rebellion win, a cease fire is the certain way to more bloody Hunger Games. However, I also have doubts about how much I understand what Peeta meant, like in our first Game when I needed to be in the arena and faced Rue's death to understand the meaning of "not a piece of their game". And whether he was in his own mind when he was interviewed.

"Traitor!" "Liar!" "Enemy!" "Bastard!"

They start insulting him around me. The anger suddenly rises inside me. I turn to face the room.

"Who do you think you are to insult him? You have betrayed us since the Dark Days, didn't you? You sold us to the Capitol, didn't you? You jump back in the Game with Capitol, fine, but you don't have the right to judge us. You don't even know if they had done anything to him." I didn't know I have raised my voice. They are silence again. Peeta, he's much better than anyone in this room.

"You don't have the right to say that." With the last sentence, I run out of the room. A man tries to stop me but I quickly duck under his arm. I run and run and run. Peeta. I will protect you, from the Game, from the rebels. It's my turn to protect you.


	3. Chapter 3

******Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins forever!**  


**Chap 3**

"Katniss!"

I take off my eyes from Madge to see Gale standing at the door. After running away from the command, I came back to Madge's hospital room. She gave me a blank smile and I shushed her to sleep. Then I just sat here, absentmindedly smile with myself because Peeta is alive.

"Can we talk?" Gale mouths with me.

I look at his blood trickling nose, reach to the tissue box on the table and walk out.

"What's happened?" I ask while giving him a tissue. He takes it and shrugs.

"I got in Bogg's way." Looking at my blank expression, he adds. "The one who tried to stop you."

"You fought with him?" I ask and give him more tissues.

"Not really. Just grab his arm and block the door." Gale says.

"Will you be punished?" I sigh. I don't think I was at fault when I shouted at them but I don't like involving Gale into the mess I caused. However, a part of me feels relief. Gale still protects my back. I got him back without any further talk about love.

"Oh, already." He points at the hand which is keeping a tissue to his nose."President Coin took back the communicuff."

President Coin. Alma Coin, the leader of rebellion, the president of District 13, a woman that is cold like steel. Even though I never had a real conversation with her, I already have a bad feeling about her. Her eyes somehow resemble Snow's.

"Katniss, don't think too much." Gale puts his hand on my shoulder. I abandon my thoughts about Coin.

"I'm sorry for pull you into my mess."

"Don't be. To tell the truth, it's good to see your fire again." He grins but then furrows his eyebrows. "At your first game, when he allied with the Careers, our District called him traitor, too. And it turned out he did that for you. This time with what he said about your ignorant of a rebellion, if… if we lose, you might be able to survive the punishment when you play it right. He's still trying to protect you. That guy…" Gale shakes his head lightly.

"I know."

This is the very first conversation between me and Gale about Peeta. Usual, not only him but people avoid this topic around me, worry that a breakdown or an attack like what I did to Haymitch would come. Well, he deserved it anyway.

"But I still have to say, what he said have done more harm than good. There are districts where the resistance is shakier than around here. People are still looking up to you and him." Gale continues.

"Why? Why are they obsessed by what we talked, what we did? They are so into what they see and hear and they forget how to think on their own. I. Am. As normal as anyone else. So does Peeta. We need space." I burst out.

"You still have no idea your effect." Says Gale.

"Oh, come on. Gale, I'm tired of being watched. Capitol made me a desperate lover for their selfish intention. And now, District 13 tries to do same thing with me." I bite my lip. It's not hard to tell what Mockingjay will do. Too important to be out in real fight, to really take a part in rebellion. I will just sit in this big underground bunker, knowing Peeta, Gale and others are out there, fighting and dying. I will be a model. Twirl for them. Twirl for them. My mind goes near insane part again. I dash my eyes around, the hospital's wall starts moving back and forth before me.

"Katniss, how can you say that? District 13 is on our side. They do it for all of us. This is war and people need sacrifice. We need to fight. There is no half way and we need to do all we can for the war." Gale holds my shoulder to make me look straight at him.

"You don't really know them. A month cannot tell you much about them. And I don't mean I don't want to fight. Yes, I want to. I want to bring down the Capitol. I want to kill Snow with my own hands. For what they did to us in 75 years. For all of children they killed in 75 games. For what they did to our District." I yell. A nurse pokes her head out of her room and shushes me. I pant and finally I say quietly. "And for what they did to her."

We look through the glass. Even in sleep, the peace doesn't come to Madge. She stirs a lot and her face is looked like she is in pain.

"Every times she sees me, she cries." Gale says.

I glance at his face and catch a deep sorrow in his eyes. The thought in that night when Gale was whipped comes back to me. Before the whipping, had anything happened between them? But this time, the jealousy doesn't poke me.

"You know, if I could hit a button and kill every living soul working for the Capitol, I would do it. Without hesitation." The determination in his voice stirs me. His fire is too strong, too hot, it makes me scared a little. I think of my prep team, the Avoxes, the Capitol attendant who made me and Peeta warm milk and showed his sympathy on the train.

"I still wish we could think of a way to keep deaths at the limit." I whisper.

"You see, what Peeta said takes effect on you." Gale says after a while. "It will do the same on people. People are confused by fear, they need a pillar to hold on. They need hope. You bring us hope. Katniss, just become the Mockingjay for us."

I slide down and lean against the wall. A normal girl who just simply tries to survive becomes the hope of a whole country. We are so desperate. What am I going to do? I take a deep breath and look up to Gale.

"You said it yourself, Gale. We have to do everything we can. I'm going to be the Mockingjay. But in some conditions and one of them is that they let me fight as a normal soldier."


	4. Chapter 4

**********Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins forever!**

**Chap 4**

_1. I want to fight._

_2. Peeta will be excused if the rebellion win._

_3. I kill Snow._

I look at the paper where I'm writing down conditions for me becoming the Mockingjay. I wonder whether I should put some more conditions. I have spent most of my life running after some mere conditions for survival: food, shelter. Being the Mockingjay is something I don't know how much it costs. Buttercup hisses on the bed behind me. He doesn't like being in the same room with me all the afternoon, not mentioning a closed room underground where he can't go anywhere. So he keeps hissing at me.

"Okay, okay. Maybe I will put you on the list, too. You, annoying cat." I grumble.

"I think he hissed at me."

Her voice startles me. I turn my head to the door of my family's compartment. Mrs Mellark is standing at the doorway. She was the only one of the Mellarks surviving the bombing. She was not at the bakery but at her sister's home. That's what I heard from people. A month at District 13 but I didn't visit her. She received a work in the kitchen, though. To tell the truth, of all people I was not expect her. Poor Mr Mellark.

"I know. Life is unfair." She says.

"What?" I drop my pencil.

"Life is unfair, that's what you're thinking. I'm the last person whom you want to survive. It should be my husband, right?." She continues without breaking her look at me.

"I… I don't…" I stutter. After all she is still Peeta's mom. I can't say I want her dead though I hate her, really. And I don't know she can read me like that.

"You heard my son, right. You're terrible with lies. So… I want to ask you something."

She is so straightforward and demanding that I don't know what to say. And she doesn't need me to say anyway.

"Can you save him?"

"I already put him on the list, m'am." I reply and show her the paper. She takes some step to see the paper more clearly but still keeps a fine distant with me. "I'm going to work for the rebellion to save him. These are my conditions."

"No, it's not about the Capitol and the rebellion." She shakes her head lightly. "Of course, that's important but what I meant is that can you save him from you, from himself." Again she looks straight into my eyes.

"I don't understand, m'am." I have no idea at all.

"He needs you, my stupid son. Without you, he will hurt himself till death. You might save his life from the capitol, from the rebellion but if you leave after that, there's still no life for him. I'm asking you, Miss Everdeen, can you love him back? If not, it might be good you leave him death." She waits for my reply. So sudden, I can see her under a new light. I always think of her as a witch, a horrible mother who beats her children. But will a horrible mother care and understand about her children's feeling like her?

"Life is hard, you know. And I'm not a decent woman to begin with. I couldn't give any of them a gentle mother. Well, my husband, he knew about bread, the works but not about business. I need to keep everything in line. I will not regret about being a strict mom with them. I did keep them full and warm, that's my limit. Anyway, I still want them… him to be happy. That's what you can give him." She goes on after my silence, as if she can read me again and tries to answer my wonders.

"In my first game… when you said that I might become Victor to Peeta after the Reaping, did you know what he feels about me?" I hesitate. This is not what she wants to hear, I'm sure.

"Everybody knows, except you fool." Ouch. Her language is still hurt.

"Then you said that because you thought that would assure him." I says, more surprised with her time after time. She is the type of person that's not used to sweet words.

"I don't need you to point out what I want to do with my son. Back to my question, will you?" She turns her head away and taps her feet annoyingly.

I don't know why I want to smile. It's a mild relief like I just got myself an ally in this big arena, a person who actually cares about Peeta with me. So I tell her with all my honesty.

"Mrs Mellark, I'm a fool about love. I still can't figure my feeling about Peeta. I can't assure you that I can love him like he loves me. But I do need him. I do care about him. I want to protect him and I will."

She gives me a smirk.

"Okay. Thank you for that." She says and looks down at her schedule on her arm. "It's time for me to go. Goodbye, Miss Everdeen."

She turns on her heel. I still have a thing to say so I stand up and pull her palm. It's rough, like Peeta's.

"Mrs Mellark." She stops. "I want to say sorry. It must be awkward for you when… Peeta told me about Mr Mellark and my mother… on the television."

"Don't worry. Actually… after that my husband said that he loved me for whatever I am. That's how love works with the Mellarks' men." She smiles and blushes, oh my god, for real, like a young girl. That smile shines on her face and I can see Peeta in his mom. "Remember that."

And she leaves me at the door way with a shock face that scares little Prim when she comes back from her medical class.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaim: I wish I owned THG but a wish is just a wish.**

**Chap 5**

The lights are all out except the tiny safety light. I lie on my side and watch Prim and my mother cuddle to each other in their sleep. The wall is so thick that I can't hear any sound from outside of our compartment. Instead, I can hear Buttercup purrs happily with the warmth of Prim. Without Peeta, my nightmares come back to haunt me, this time with some new ghost I collected from my second Games. They all agree to make my sleeping time shorter and more horrified than before. And with the rush of events today to think about, I decide I won't struggle with them just to get only an hour of sleep.

I recall the talk with Mrs Mellark. _I do need Peeta_. After seeing him on the television, I miss him so much that it's unbearable. I rarely have this feeling – the absolute need of someone. Exactly, I avoid it, I lock it because it makes me weak and I have to be strong for whom still around me. I only let it engulf me once a year, on the day my father died every year and when I was alone in the woods. But I would always find my way back shortly, not like my mother. I don't know how Peeta Mellark makes his way into my life, how he makes me feel something that I could always lock them away before I involved with him, how he makes me this crazy, holding his tiny pearl in darkness and feel like ready to cry any time.

Is it love? Or just a very strong habit that I can give up yet? I want to protect him. Is it love? Or is it just because I owe him? I wish someone can figure it for me.

"Katniss?" Prim whispers. She has turned to face me. "You're alright?"

"Yes, I'm ok. Go back to sleep, Prim." I tell her. I don't want my problems disturb her.

"Uhm, it seems like I can't sleep without your noises." Prim grins at me. Then she carefully crawls out of the bed and snuggles in with me. Buttercup immediately follows her and finds a space between us. Prim quietly squeezes my hand. Feeling the pearl, she says.

"He will be alright." I sigh. I remember one morning, she woke up and cried in my arms because of a nightmare and now, she woke up and assured me from my nightmare.

"I don't know, Prim. I don't know what I will do is enough to keep him safe." I tell her.

"What will you do?"

"Tomorrow I will tell the Command I agree to become their Mockingjay but with some conditions. I want to fight." I can hear her gulp but she keeps her silence. "I want them promise about Peeta's safety. And other Victors captured by Capitol. I want to kill Snow. And I want to keep this ugly creature." I hiss at the cat playfully to ease the intense. Prim chuckles a little.

"I don't think they will have problem with Buttercup or Snow but about Peeta, how do you know they will keep their promise? People seem very upset with his interview." She says after a while quietly rubbing Buttercup's furry head.

"I'm thinking of make it a public announcement." I rub my head with my free hand. In such case, I can only think of lean on the power of crowd, like in my first game.

"Oh no, Katniss. That's not a good idea. People already think of you as their Mockingjay. You can't tell them you want a cost or you might lose their trust. And also with the Command, you must find a decent way to talk to them." Prim says, a little panic.

"Why?"

"Because they own the army. Because it will be crazy out there, in the war and if something happens, there's no one to blame. I know how much you hate to act and until now people love you for whom you are. But this is a sensitive problem." She continues in a rush.

I widen my eyes. What she said is something beyond my thoughts. I was the one fighting through two Hunger Games but she's telling me the fact of war that I didn't think of.

"Prim, what's happened?"

She is quiet. I have to repeat my question.

"In the bombing, Katniss. It was chaos. People running, crying, dying. Gale told me to run to the meadow with mother and his family but I ran back with him. I had thought in such a case, people would only think of survival but some of them… When the Hall was bombed we ran into a man. He recognized me. He started shouting about how it was your fault that Capitol punished us. And he tried attacking me… he wanted to kill me even when a burning tree fell down and hurt his legs. Gale saved me from him. And then Thread… you know how much people hate him and in that night, he was stabbed in the back. I didn't see clearly who did that but…" Prim says trembly. She puts both her hand on her face. I think she cries but she doesn't. She's no longer a crybaby. She glues her eyes at the ceiling. When she talks again, her voice is already steady.

"Katniss, believe me, you don't want to lose their trust. And please don't because I don't want to lose you. I almost lost you twice when you went to the Games and it hurt so much."

"I promise I will find a way, Prim." I say and caress her small face.

"You know how much I wish you wouldn't grow up this way." I whisper. I tried so hard to protect her but this is something I can't prevent. The war already took away my innocence little duck and beside me now is a girl who has seen enough things to never have an untroubled life again. She smiles and kisses my palm.

"I'm glad I can grow up to help you, Katniss. Sleep with me now, okay?"

I nod and put the pearl back to the silver parachute which rescuers took from the arena with me. I put it safely under my pillow with a hope that somehow I can protect its giver and it can keep my nightmare away like him.


	6. Chapter 6

**************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 6:**

After a day making my head concentrate, the next morning my stomach is the first thing wakes up. Gale meets me at the dining room, gulfing down as fast as I can anything on my food stray. When you're hungry, everything tastes much better. The limited resources of District 13 don't allow people to have a full meal, just enough calories for each individual depend on their body and job's various conditions. I finish my meal, not really satisfied but enough to take my mind off thinking about food. My schedule tells me they want me at the Command after the breakfast. That's fine because I don't think breaking into their meeting without permission will be thought as a decent action and I promised Prim I will be nice.

"Nervous, huh?" Gale asks while digging into his food.

"Yes. I hope I won't shout at them like yesterday." I sigh. Be nice, be nice. I chant in my head.

"Need me to back you up?" Gale suggests and I'm happy because he asks.

"If you don't mind your schedule." I reach for his arm and look at the word imprinted on it.

7:30 – Nuclear History class.

"Of course I will give it up to watch your back. If you don't mind your schedule." He mimics my voice. I frown at him. I'm just trying to be nice and polite.

When we arrive at the Command, President Coin, Plutarch and their people have already assembled. We take a sit and I pull out my note. The words dance before my eyes. Be nice, be nice. One hand grabs the paper, other hand grabs the edge of the table, I'm still on the verge of losing my mind for its floating.

"Katniss?" I hear Gale whispering beside me. "They're waiting."

"I will be Mockingjay." I inhale and tell them what they have wanted to hear for a month. They clap their hand, say congratulation to other, slap on other's back. Not all of them, though. Alma Coin remains silence on her chair.

"But?" Her voice is untroubled, unimpressed. And it can make the room quiet again in just a second.

"Well, I just need some favors. I think they're reasonable and within your potential." I don't need to look at Gale to know how surprised he is. I'm never good at words but I tried several times before going to dining room. I hope they work.

"And what are they?"

"Can my family keep my cat?" I show my respect by asking them instead of demanding. And Buttercup is not a big problem. They agree for my family to move to another compartment which has a small window aboveground so that Buttercup can go out and do his work. I know he will be alright by himself even if he is locked outside after the curfew. He has done that well for a month, right. Anyway, that's a good start.

"I would like to fight with other people." I continue. "Real fight."

"That's too risky." Plutarch exclaims.

"I know but I want to be out there with people. I don't want to stay here while they're dying still believe I'm fighting with them. I don't want to be a model. I want to fight." I clap my hand at my mouth, realizing I yelled again. They're silence but I can see some smiles.

"That's the spirit." Someone whisper.

"I believe you have missed all of your classes and training time." Coin says matter-of-factly. Oh, she likes me as much as I like her. And that's something I wouldn't do in this life.

"From now on, I will take my schedule carefully. If your doctors could help me more about my headache." I promise.

"You can fight. But consider that not only your safety but also the filming crew's depend on this decision. And you better obey your superior." Coin motions her left hand. A big man stands up and looks at me.

"I'm Bogg." He introduces shortly. Oh, the one who tried to stop me and gave Gale a bloody nose yesterday, Coin's man. I mentally note.

"Hi, I'm Katniss."

This makes the room burst in chuckles. Of course, everyone knows who I am. Bogg nods his head coolly and sits down.

"What else?" Coin continues when people settle down.

"I kill Snow." I can't tell this condition nicer and I don't think I need to be nice in this one. Some strange lights flicker in Coin's eyes. But the rest of her face remains unemotional.

"I will consider that." I thought she would agree immediately. I take a deep breath and reach to the most complicate problem.

"And finally, I hope you will consider about Peeta and other Victors captured by Capitol before you can really tell their conditions and intentions."

Gale shuffles beside me. People raise eyebrow. I continue before someone can cut me off.

"We haven't known yet what Capitol did to him, to them. The cease fire might not be his idea. And even if it is…" I gulp hardly, don't want to think about that possibility. "I hope with all my contributions for the rebellion, and I swear I will do everything I can, you can spare his life."

"Deny!" Coin says coldly. "You don't know how much damage his interview already caused. His fate will be decided at the war criminal trial with others."

"No, it's not his fault for being captured. He must be tortured, brainwashed." I talks urgently. Be nice. "Please." I add.

"There's no evidence." It's no use toward this steel woman.

"Actually there is." A gentle voice suddenly cuts in our discussion. People turn to Coin at the same time, actually to the person behind her. I stand up to see more clearly. I didn't notice her present in this room when I walked in. I don't notice her being in the Command ever. She was a thin girl, maybe at the same age with me, her skin is pale in a sickness way. Her features are familiar and when she talks, her voice makes my guts stir.

"About a month before the Quell, Capitol Department of Science claimed about a new drug extracted from the venom of tracker jacker." She looks at me. "Inspired by your first Game. By the way, this drug can cause a strong hallucination, much stronger than nature tracker jacker's venom can cause. They might already put it in use."

I wonder who she is because people are listening to her very carefully. How did she know about Capitol's new drug?

"I think you should make an announcement about this drug to eliminate the interview's effect. Make the Capitol become more brutal for dividing the star-cross lover. And then, every announce he makes will increase the anger toward Capitol and the sympathy toward her. That will do better than turning him or other Victors into real ally of Capitol."

She's great. Coin narrows her eyes at her but people already agreed with her.

"She's right, President." Plutarch says in his cheerful voice. "That's much better."

"But still no proof." Coin lowers her voice. The girl pulls up her sleeve and we can see tracks of several injections on her arm.

"Why don't you tell us sooner about these?"

The girl shrugs at Coin's question.

"It was still in trial when I was injected. And I don't like you. I tell you now because I want to help her."

People gasp. I can see Coin tightening her grip on the chair. But she keeps her cool really well.

"Fine. This problem is settled. Anything else?" Finally she says. An idea strikes me.

"Ah, and if there is no problem I would like to have some times hunting, with Gale to watch my back. Once a week is fine. That will help the food resource, too." I miss the taste of fresh meat. I miss the woods.

"Okay. But in a quarter mile radius. With communication units and tracker anklets." That's easy after Peeta's problem. "And for now, because you want to kill Snow, I think you should spend sometimes with Rhosy. Three of you are dismissed."

We get out of the room with the girl. Gale leaves us to get back to his class. I break the silence.

"Thank you. But why?"

"You're slow. You don't recognize me, huh?"

I shake my head, dumbfounded.

"Then, let me introduce myself. I'm Rhosy Snow, President Snow's granddaughter."


	7. Chapter 7

******************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 7:**

The sweet odor sucks in my mind. I count on my finger how many times I had to face Snow in the past. When he crowned me, when he came to my house and at the Victory Tour. Three times. Only three times but his smell, the mix of too sweet odor of roses and bloody stink has already left a deep scar in my mind. It wakes up my scare and also my anger. I sink deep down in my waking nightmare where he comes and takes away everyone I love, I care. I'm drowning in my own imagination.

"Oh, come on. Get yourself together!"

I jerk my head. His girl has found me. I look around to find a way out but I'm sitting in a closet and she's blocking the door way. There is no weapon. I'm trapped. Like a rabbit in Gale's snare. But I'm not. I throw myself at her madly, because I'm mad. She makes a quick move to her side and I bump into the wall. She pushes me against the wall then we start shouting, yelling while wrestling and pulling hair. When some hands pull us out of the fight, we both did some good damage at each other. I gradually get a hold of myself. After Rhosy told me her full name, I ran but not so far from the Command before I find a closet to hide in. People in the Command are gathering around us.

"What's going on here? You two have been dismissed for just ten minutes and you already tried to bite each other to death?" Plutarch exclaims. I swear he would never give up the cheerful tone in his voice for good.

"What is she doing here?" I yell. "She's his granddaughter!"

"So what? I'm not him!" She hisses back at me.

"Stop, both of you." Coin says coldly. "Miss Everdeen, what's your problem with Miss Rhosy?"

"I don't trust her."

"It's not you to decide who is trustworthy or not. And I believe you agreed to obey your superior in order to gain your own conditions."

I bite my lip. I really want to spit at her, shout at her but all my effort in this morning to be nice will be ruined.

"Yes, I did." I grumble.

"So, I order you to have a talk with Miss Rhosy. No fighting." She says the last word and turns her back. The men release me and Rhosy. She cleans her bloody lip with her hand. I glare at her but at my surprise, she gives me a thumb.

"Good fight. Just as I expected."

I don't respond. She raises her eyebrow.

"If you want to continue, we should find a private place. Talk or fight, we still need to get out of here or she will poke her nose in our business again."

I take a good look at her. She's looked sick but she has some strength in her. Her face resembles his except the eyes. They have a deep green color. I don't know if that's the real color or a Capitol's fashion. And her hair was dark brown and seems real. It fits with those eyes and makes me think of the woods. That's a stupid reason but I give her a chance. I nod at her.

She starts walking away, I follow, a few steps behind. She leads me to her compartment. It seems empty without personal things like a picture, a toy, things can tell us this compartment belongs to someone. She sits down on the bed and I sit down on the only chair in the room.

"I love your Games. I watched your first Game several times." She grins and starts fiddling her fingers. I rise up in my chair.

"What are you doing here? What do you want from me? Why did you help me?" I try hard to keep my voice not too loud. She frowns and fiddles her fingers harder.

"I don't know. I mean I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know. I don't know." She rolls her eyes around, nervously. "Wait a minute."

She flings to the drawer and pulls out a small box. She picks up a small pill and throws it into her mouth. She sits still and holds tightly the box, I can see her knuckle becomes white, for some good minutes then turns back to her bed, smiles at me as if nothing happened.

"That's it. You just witnessed some remained effect of that drug. Okay, can you repeat your questions?"

I repeat. What is she trying to pull out?

"Well, I really love your Games. Don't cut me. I don't love it like a television show as you think. What I like is how you and Peeta created such beautiful things in that bloody arena. Your song for Rue, your stories with Peeta."

"You remember her name?" I'm surprised. "Normally, Capitol people don't care about dead tributes."

"I'm not a Capitol citizen. I was brought up in District 10. Well, it's a little complicate. As I was told by my mother, to climb up to the President status, he used a lot of dirty ways. Seduction, blackmailing, poisoning. My mother's mother was an important person's daughter. He made her love him and then pregnant, hid the child away to control her, used her family affection and then killed them after he had what he wanted. My mother was his illegitimate child. And when she grew up, he prostituted her to rich people in Capitol. I don't know who the hell is the father. She got pregnant and was brought to District 10. When I was nine, she died and Snow brought me back to Capitol to become his food taster and drug tester. So I'm not really a Capitol citizen." She doesn't change her tone through her story, just absentmindedly rub her injected arm.

"Then, Plutarch asked him to buy a night with me and took me away. I was in the same hovercraft with you. But I don't like Coin, I don't like the rebellion. I don't want to give them information." She chuckles. "If Capitol wins, I will come back to my hell like before. If the rebellion wins, I will always be thought as Snow's granddaughter and never have a life, or else I will be tried and killed with him. If the war prolongs, I will die of lacking medicine. That pill is just one kind of what I need for all the effects of drugs and poisons I have in my body. So, this is a no winning game for me. I will just do whatever I want. And I want to have a good time with you and help you. Is that enough reasons for you?"

"I… I'm sorry." I stutter. "Even though it's Snow, it's still hard to believe he could do such things to his own blood."

Rhosy chuckles louder. I don't find anything funny in this story.

"Oh, he hates everything. He despises everything. Everyone. Even himself." Says Rhosy.

"And I thought Haymitch was the worst world-hater I know of." I say.

That makes her laugh harder. I feel a small smile trying to climb up my face. So sudden, she stops and straightens up. Her voice changes to be serious.

"Katniss, let me tell you this thing. Cease fire is not his idea. Snow is the president but he doesn't have all the power. There is a council. But it seems like he was trying to deal with them and you know what deal means with him. If he has all the power, guess what he will do. He will activate the nuclear bombs."

"Why? If he does that, District 13 will activate their bombs, too and Capitol will be destroyed." I says, stunned.

"I told you. He hates everything. He hates districts. He hates the Capitol. He hates this country. If he can he will bring it down."


	8. Chapter 8

**********************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 8**

For the next whole week, I struggle to keep up with my schedule. They readjust it for me to have time with Madge, and actually two hours hunting every day, extracted from training hours because bow and arrows are weapons they want me to use fighting and the best training center for me is the woods. However I still have problems with tactic class because I can't concentrate through two hours sitting and hearing. But to tell the truth, these days were the best time I have in District 13. Tired from training, I have some good sleep. I can breathe the fresh air in the woods. Madge has been better. With Rhosy, we actually become a trio bonded by madness. One day, a nurse finds us in Madge's hospital room, one crying, one laughing and one swearing while cuddling to each other.

"She follows you everywhere, doesn't she?" Gale asks in the woods another day.

I pull out the mint leave I'm holding in my mouth.

"Rhosy?"

"Yes, who's else?! It seems like she's the only one who doesn't have a schedule." He's right. Rhosy doesn't have to train or learn anything or even to go to the hospital. To put it simply, the Command always remembers who she is and there's no need to teach Snow's granddaughter the technology of District 13. Or to cure her. So she just stayed in her compartment and went to the Command when they asked. Now, she follows me anywhere she can, waits for me outside the classes and inside the gate while I'm hunting.

"Who is she anyway?"

"Gale, this is the third time you ask me. I told you, she's Snow food taster and drug tester." I sigh. I know Gale is one of people who will never think of Rhosy as she is, not her grandfather is if he knows. If I wasn't ordered to have a talk with her, I would be the same. And Gale is more stubborn, his prejudice has its root deeper. So I told him half the truth. He quietly skins the rabbit we just shot down. But he doesn't give up the topic yet.

"Why bother save a Capitol citizen when she doesn't want to help us? She has a cocky manner. Except you and Madge, she doesn't offer a smile or any respect to other. And she got away easily after she opposed President Coin before all people of the Command. What's so important about her?"

"I don't like Coin, too." I say simply. "She has the same dark aura around her just like Snow." I repeat what Rhosy told me and I agreed with her about that.

"That's unfair for her, Katniss. She has a whole District to care and a rebellion to run. She can't be soft or bright. If people just run around and oppose her, there will be no District 13." Gale stops his knife to talk.

"That kind of makes me think of her as a dictator, same as Snow." I stand up and walk away. I don't want to argue with Gale. I know he admires her. He grunts behind me, collects the game and follows me. When we can see the gate, I turn to Gale.

"Look, Gale. Coin decided that Rhosy is useful in some ways and I need to trust her. So you should trust Coin's decision, right." I think for a moment and add. "You know what, Capitol citizen, they are not all heartless as we thought."

"Not heartless? They're excited watching children kill or be killed every year." Gale widens his eyes.

"They just… don't know things because that's the way they were raised. But when they know us, they can really love us. And Rhosy, she has her own problem so just try… well, let her be."

"Okay, she helped you, after all." Gale looks away.

When we go inside the gate, Rhosy is talking to Plutarch.

"There she is." He smiles widely at me.

"What's wrong?" I frown. He's kind of makes me feel uneasy.

"Oh, nothing wrong, I was just telling Miss Rhosy here about a small interview we're going to film today. It's about the drug they might use in Peeta and other Victors. It will be broadcasted to entire population of Panem. We want to try Beetee's Airtime Assault on something so after that we can launch your films smoothly. Do you want to join us and I can introduce you your filming crew?" He finishes and smiles again. I can see Rhosy rolling her eyes behind him. I will give up my bow to see him showing another emotion.

"What's about my schedule? I have a class." I ask.

"Don't worry. I will tell them about your absence and you can check out your outfit, too. If you want, your cousin can go with you." He says.

"Okay, let us take a quick shower." I nod and go to the kitchen with Gale to give the game to Miss Mellark and Greasy Sae. They're really grateful to have more choices for the menu used to be limited in District 13.

We meet again in Plutarch's filming room. His assistant, Fulvia greets us. "Really happy to have you in the team." She waves at a group of people and they come to us. My filming crew. They are a pair of burly Capitol cameramen with heavy mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells, named Castor and Pollux, a woman director named Cressida who has a shaved head tattooed with green vines, and her assistant, Messalla, a slim young man with several sets of earrings.

"Okay, okay. Let's get back to our work." Fulvia claps her hand, finishes the introduction. The crew gets away and she turns back to me. "While we prepare for Miss Rhosy, you can check this. I think it will help raising your fire." She then gives me a large sketchbook bound in black leather. I take it to a small table and glance down suspiciously. Raising my fire with a sketchbook. My first thought is Peeta's pictures but no, when I open the cover I find myself, standing straight and strong, in a black uniform. And the only person who has the talent to turn me into something this incredible with this outfit is…

"Cinna." I whisper.

"Your stylish is… just great." Gale exhales beside me. I flip the pages slowly and on the final page, I can see his writing under the image of my Mockingjay pin. _I'm still betting on you._

"That's what he said to me before my first Game. And just before I entered the Quell, they came and beat him and took him away." I tell Gale. Cinna was always a rebel and he bet his life on me.

"Don't waste his sacrifice. You will be the most beautiful Mockingjay, Katniss." Gale puts his hand on my shoulder. My voice fails me so I just nod at him.

"Katniss." I turn me head to see Rhosy dressed up in a hospital gown. To be looked like a real victim of the drug. I stand up and walk to her.

"Do you really want to hear it?" She asks.

"What?"

"You're always slow. I'm going to talk about what they might do to your Peeta."

I don't have time to rethink about that, they already take Rhosy away. I come back to my chair. Rhosy takes a sit before the camera. Fulvia starts asking her questions about who she is and what she wants to tell us today. Rhosy claims to be a drug tester of Capitol and then shows the camera her arm. My head starts spinning. I imagine Peeta screaming while people push him down and jam needles into his arm.

"So, tell me, Rhosy, what can this drug do to people?" Fulvia asks. Rhosy looks straight at me while she answers.

"Well, this drug was extracted from tracker jacker venom. It can cause a strong hallucination and mental confusion. They use it along with something else to have the strongest effect. With me they used to ask me questions and if I answered they would shout at me, threaten me. They made me believe everything I say were horrible, were wrong and I might be punished for talking and I did believe. The effect can work for a long time. Until now, sometimes I still can be frightened when people asking me and the dose they used on me was small and not fully developed. So, what I want to tell everyone is simple." Rhosy takes a glance at the board people show her from behind the camera, what they want her to say.

"The Capitol can brainwash people. They might already do that on Peeta Mellark, Victor of 74th Annual Hunger Games to make him say things against the rebellion, against what his wife, Katniss Everdeen is fighting for. They might go further than that, even make him believe she's his enemy. They might do same things with other Victors to make them go against their people. This is the truth. The Capitol is trying to break us apart, family, friends, lovers. We need to be strong, we need to believe, we need to fight."

"Thank you, Rhosy." Fulvia says and Cressida says to the cameraman. "And cut!"

That's when I dive my head down to the floor. I will never get whole of him back, my boy with the bread.


	9. Chapter 9

**************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 9**

Peeta chases me with a knife. He keeps yelling at me that I'm a mutt. He accuses me of leaving him to death in our Games. I run and run but the ground under me starts melting and I hardly lift up my feet. Peeta puts me down and slides the knife to me. He laughs madly.

"Come on, you do it. Kill me. What stops you? You are a mutt, you are evil. You will do whatever to come home. Leave me, betray me, why don't kill me right now?"

I cry. I remember those last moments of our first game when I raised my arrow, thinking he could have killed me. He raises his injected arm, makes me to see. And all of sudden he bumps his body to me, to the knife. I feel the blood, warm and sticky on my hand.

"Katniss, it's alright. It's alright." He whispers and gives me one last kiss.

Soil quickly turns to mud and we sink to the darkness.

"Peeta! Peeta!" I sob.

"Katniss! Wake up! Wake up!" Who's calling me? Wake up? This is just a nightmare? I used all my strength to open my eyes.

"Hi." I see the sweet smile of little Prim. I pull her down to hug her. She strokes my hair gently.

"He called me mutt. He hates me." I choke up. I never thought I would lose Peeta this way. "It's my fault. I left him."

"No, it's not. Katniss." Prim pulls out to look me in the eyes. "That's not your fault. And he surely knows that. He would never hate you. And he's strong. I'm sure they're having a bad time trying to make him believe anything else. So you stop accusing yourself, okay?"

She looks at me with her bright blue eyes, trying to make me believe what she said. I gulp down salty tears. I want to believe, too.

"Okay." I say.

She gives me a gentle pat like she always does to Lady or Buttercup. We both realize that and chuckle.

"Now, you eat this. I will go tell mom and Gale. And Rhosy. She's sitting outside." Prim jumps down the bed and gives me a tray of food. Now I realize I'm at hospital again.

"Why is she outside?" I ask Prim. She looks down to hide her embarrassing face.

"You hurt your head after her announcement and Gale was mad at her. He didn't want her to come near you… with her injected arm. I know he was unreasonable but I think maybe she can remind you of… well, so I kind of agree with him." She glances at the door.

I sigh. I have to be stronger so that people can stop worrying and I can take care of them, not vice versa.

"It's okay. She warned me before. I was careless. Tell her to come in." I say.

Prim leaves Rhosy with me. I sit up and reach to her hand.

"I'm sorry for making you in trouble." I say.

"I'm used to it." She squeezes my hand. "Anyway, they succeeded with broadcasting my interview. It cut in a Capitol's show about the Peacekeeper. And I heard the nurses talking about it. They believe his innocence." I close my eyes. At least, at least a threat from the rebellion was reduced.

"I should go. Your "cousin" will come here soon." Rhosy chuckles lightly. I'm already used to her no-reason-chuckling.

"Katniss, you need to understand whom you're fighting against. They won 75 years ago and surely that's not a clean victory." Rhosy says when she reaches the door.

The next day I insist the doctors to let me out. They accept because I just have a slight concussion. I keep up with the schedule again. In the afternoon, Coin makes a public announcement to whole District. She says that according to our spy system, the Capitol was actually using that drug on their prisoners so any damages caused by Peeta would be excused. If other Victors do anything harmful to the rebellion, they will be considered as Capitol drug abuse victims and can be excused. People cheer for a just decision and show me their sympathy. I see sliding down in a corner, Finnick cries quietly in relief. The Capitol might capture his Annie as well. I come and lead him back to the hospital. His mental trouble is much more serious than me, I was surprised. It has kept him in the hospital since the day we arrived.

"Thank you." He smiles in a sincere way, not a flirt way. "Haymitch told me that's your condition for being the Mockingjay." I frown at my mentor's, who betrayed me and Peeta, name. Notice that, Finnick says.

"It's hard for him, too. Katniss. It's hard for a mentor to choose only one. And he knows both of you better than his every year tributes."

"Okay, Finnick. I don't want to hear about him right now. And I'm happy I can help you and Annie. Can you walk alone from here?" I raise my hand to my ear. Finnick shakes his head lightly, defeated. I already walked away when he says.

"Okay. Just thank Miss Rhosy for me. And tell the Command I want to fight, too. Okay?"

I wave without turn my head back.

Three days after that, Coin calls me to the Command after the breakfast. I notice Haymitch for the first time appearing before me after our little fight. I send him a glare before turn to Coin.

"Well, as you requested, we're planning to send you to the field today. But step by step, we will start at a least dangerous situation. The Capitol just bombed the Eight last night so it's a light chance they will come back today. We will send you to Eight, mostly to help with the aftermath. Am I clear?" She points out District Eight on the map behind her.

"Yes, I understand." I reply.

"For now, I'd like you follow Bogg to the Special Defense to meet Beetee and check your weapon. After lunch, you will come back here for further directions. Now, let's move." She nods at Bogg. I stand up and remember about Finnick so I tell her his aspiration.

"We have plan for him, too. But his mental condition delays it. He has to wait."

I agree and quietly follow Bogg to the Special Defense farer down than anywhere I've been to. And at my surprise, Gale is there, discussing something with Beetee.

"Gale? What are you doing here?" I call. They look up at me. I smile at Beetee. He looks much better than the last time I saw him in the hospital though he still has to use a wheel chair to move around.

"Hi, Beetee."

"Good to see you, Katniss." He smiles and wheels the chair to me. We shake hand.

"What are you doing with my cousin?" I ask him.

"Oh, he has worked with me for days. He's a genius with snare and trap just like you with your bow and arrow. We're working on something." Beetee waves at the pile of papers, sketch and models on a round table. "You must be here to check out your weapon, right?" He turns back.

"Yes, I believe you have something good for me. But can I see your trap?" I'm curious. A genius with snare and trap working with a genius of technology, I wonder how their combination's product works. Bogg doesn't oppose me, he must be curious as well.

"Of course, but it's still on modeling program. Come here, come here." Beetee leads us to a computer. On the screen I see a system of communication trench. Soldiers jump up from the trench, march forward and the bomb goes off. I'm about to ask where the trap is, but the next wave of soldiers already reached their comrades in order to aid the wounds and the second bomb finishes all of them. A trap works on human compassion.

"Isn't that great?" Beetee asks. Bogg praises.

"Well, I don't know." I murmur and turn to look at Gale. He smiles with Bogg's compliment and doesn't catch my eyes. A bad, real bad feeling crushes my stomach.

* * *

guest: Thank you for your opinion but I dont think katniss been too friendly with Rhosy. She didnt open with her, she just tried to be nice to a poor girl who she felt she owed because Rhosy helped her and who has some thought similar with her.


	10. Part 2: Mockingjay - Chapter 10

** guest: Thank you for your opinion but I dont think katniss been too friendly with Rhosy. She didnt open with her, she just tried to be nice to a poor girl who she felt she owed because Rhosy helped her and who has some thought similar with her.  
**

**Disclaimer: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, of course.**

* * *

**Chap 10**

I can't believe it. It seems like just a minute ago, I was excited checking the awesome bow Beetee had designed special for me and admired Cinna's thoughtfulness for my Mockingjay uniform which has a tiny pocket to hold the nightlock pill we will receive before every mission in case of failing. A minute ago, I still struggled with Coin about working with Haymitch in my first mission. Just a minute ago, in the hovercraft I tried to remember the line I should say for the camera when the time comes. Fulvia told me to act naturally, normally but if I felt I wanted to say something, to send a message to Snow, I should try some line they had prepared for me. Just a minute ago, I stood with Commander Paylor of the Eight, a young but capable woman, hearing her directions about where to go, what to do. A minute ago, I helped the Eight's soldiers taking care of wounded people from last night bombing. People were excited seeing me alive and well, showed me their sympathy about my fake child's miscarriage, comforted me about Peeta.

It seems like just a minute ago…

… Then all hell broke loose.

"Katniss, let's go. You can't do anything right now. Come on." Gale shouts. Then his strong hands pull me up from the fallen beam I was trying to lift up. A hundred wounded people, mostly women and children, they are stuck in the house. And there's no way to save them.

"Come on. They will come back in a minute." Gale urges me.

As he says, I can hear they're coming back. The bombing hoverplanes have the Capitol seals. I took down two, wounded one. Gale took down one. Paylor's men took down two but that's not enough. They already destroyed the temporary hospital and one warehouse. And they're coming back.

"Retreat! Retreat!" I hear someone shouting command.

"Haymitch, Plutarch, where are you?" Gale yells at his headset. We lost contact with two hovercrafts that brought us here.

"Katniss, come here." I see Commander Paylor waving at me. I pull Gale and we run to her. She leads us to an underground shelter. My film crew is already there. I know my other bodyguards were down from the first bombing. Part of it was my fault. I was furious, because they attacked a hospital, so furious that I ran after a hoverplane without commands. They ran after me. At least, I shot the hoverplane down.

"Stay here, Soldier Everdeen." Paylor uses my status to press me, she surely doesn't want a running like before. She throws me a first aid kit.

"Take care of them." Then she runs out and disappears behind the thick smoke. Few minutes later, while I'm bandaging Gale's bleeding arm, Bogg runs in. I feel relief. I thought of him as a robot until before our taking off, when I saw he carefully placed a photo of a little boy into his pocket.

"You, never again, am I clear?" He grumbles at me.

"What am I supposed to do? They bombed a hospital. People in there were already dying. That… that… I can't let them get away with that." I yell. The warmth of a little girl's hand still lingers in my mind. She was as small as Posy.

Fulvia chips in from behind me.

"And she got us an excellent scene when she took down that hoverplane."

Bogg shoots her a deadly glare but with the dark in the shelter, she may not see it.

"That's reckless, Soldier Everdeen. You can be spotted and they will keep bombing." Bogg says.

"She must be spotted, already." We all turn to the shelter's door. Paylor is back. Her face is darkened with smoke.

"They stopped bombing but started their anti-aircraft guns. They don't want your hovercrafts back. And as I was reported, one of those two was down." In Eight, the Peacekeepers still keep a strong hold of the center town though the suburb and factories are all in the rebels' hand. I feel my stomach churning. I hope Haymitch were not on that down hovercraft. I don't forgive him yet but I don't want him die without saying sorry to me.

"Or worse, she might be reported." Gale says. I turn to him. He looks straight at me and we share the same thought. Rhosy. I told her to come to Madge for me and she saw me coming down to the hovercraft hangar. I feel my ears burning. I was so careless. After all, she's Snow's granddaughter. Everything she said and did was to approach me. Suddenly I'm angry at Peeta. He becomes my soft spot. She helped me with his problem and I feel I owed her. And I started caring for him because I owed him, too.

"Yes, that's a case. They bombed exactly the hospital and they must know you came here by hovercrafts. We have never been bombed fiercely like this." Paylor says while looking outside thoughtfully. I can hear the sound of the anti-aircraft guns from far away. After a while, they stop but the hoverplanes come back. Three waves of bombing in a day. They want to crush me one and for all. Paylor leaves us again to go to her men.

"She will pay for this." My blood is boiling. Gale frowns when I tie the bandage on his arm a little tight.

"Who?" Bogg asks.

"Rhosy Snow. She must be his spy." I pick up the kit to Castor.

"Snow?" Gale asks, puzzled. I don't care anymore.

"Yes, she's Snow's granddaughter." I tell him. He looks at me and then Bogg in disbelief.

"And you let her come near Katniss? And you let her approach you?" He growls at us.

"Coin knows what she's doing." Bogg says calmly. But I can see a hint of wondering in his eyes. "And we don't have any proof. Furthermore, with District 13's security system, I don't think she can contact outside without notice."

"She's still his granddaughter." Gale yells.

"That's a reason we need her for his information. Her profile was accepted by Coin. If you have any idea, wait till we come back to Thirteen and ask Coin yourself." He turns away to end the conversation. Gale shoots a look at me, I glare him down and finish bandaging the wounded quietly.

The bombing is less fierce but longer. They reduce the amount of bomb falling at one time but keep coming. The night falls and the A.A. guns start. Gale and I sit together in a corner of the shelter. The crew sits sleepily in another corner. Bogg and Paylor discuss things at the door way.

"I can't believe you let your guard down." Gale mutters.

"I'm sorry. It was… she helped me. You know about owing." I bite the inside of my mouth.

"It's all about Peeta, right?" Gale says after a while. His voice is little hurtful. "You were ready to leave Prim, your mother, me for him and this owing thing, twice. You know I really felt betrayed when you pull out those nightlocks."

"Gale!" I exclaim. "If it's not for him, there would be no me to know you and leave you."

"Then how many people you will leave behind to save him? Answer me if we can come back this time." Gale snorts angrily.

"You know what, Gale. I owed him my life and if you want me to finish this payback thing, I will do it right now." He goes too far. I shout and run to the shelter's door. Bogg blocks me. I struggle.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll give them what they want. Me. And you can come home." I explode.

"Stop it, you fool." People come to aid him pushing me down. "You die, the rebellion die with you."

"Wait!" Paylor cuts in. "She's right. If we give them what they want, they will stop the bombing."

"No way we give them her." Gale says.

"Of course not. We just need them think that they have what they want."

The gears in my head start working quickly.

"NO! I don't want a decoy." I scream. "I don't want any one die for me."

"They already did. If the bombing continues, and surely they will be reinforced in the morning, we will all die." Paylor says with determination. "Take off her uniform. I will go and find a volunteer."

I scream, I struggle but they all agree with Paylor. They have to tie me up and put Fulvia's handkerchief in my mouth to stop me from fighting and screaming and biting them or the nightlock pill. I see the girl, my decoy coming in, put on my clothes and running outside, to her death. A century after that, Paylor comes back and they bring me out, to the hovercraft. Haymitch and Plutarch are alive, but that doesn't help my feeling. I cry until we land on District 13. The first thing I do when they release me is running to Rhosy's room.

I will make her pay.


	11. Chapter 11

******************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 11**

I kick out the door of her room but it's empty. It's too late for her to wander around. I storm to the Command, the only place she can be at this hour. Coin must have called her when she heard of Eight. I worry I will miss the chance to kill her myself. I plunge through the guards wondering they should stop me or not. People gathering in the Command all stand up and turn to me. I look around and see Beetee, Finnick, Coin. And there she is. Sitting idly in a chair between two guards. I rush to her, push everyone aside, don't want to miss just one second. We lock our eyes. She has no fear in those eyes. I lock my fingers around her neck. People shout and try to pull me out of her. I don't care, this can be my last action but she must pay. But I'm losing. They disengage my fingers. She might escape. I lean on the person keep me from behind and plunge both my legs, kick to her face. She falls to the floor and starts laughing madly.

"Katniss!"

I catch a sight of Gale. He might be my only ally in this act. And he might still have his weapon.

"Kill her!" I scream. Half of the crowd immediately turns to him. I scream and kick until someone jams a needle into my arm.

"I will remember this, Katniss!" She yells at me when the darkness takes me.

I wake up in the hospital again, so desperate because I couldn't kill her that they need to give me another dose of sleep medicine to calm me down. The next time I wake up, I spent time to look around and see Gale is on the bed beside me. He seems like just come back to consciousness like me.

"Gale!" I call. My voice is hoarse. He turns to me.

"Katniss, are you alright?" He asks urgently.

"Yes, are you?" I check his wounded arm.

"Yes." A few seconds later, he says. "I'm sorry I failed you." We couldn't kill her. Why they didn't let us kill her.

"Both of you didn't fail anything."

I startle at the voice. Coin is standing at the door way.

"Why did you protect her? She reported us." Gale growls.

"No, she didn't." Coin says calmly. She walk in and take a chair and sit between our beds.

"First of all, it's impossible for her to communicate with outside. Beetee confirms that. Second of all, the reporter went to us himself." She looks at me.

"What?" I'm surprised.

"Yes, just right after Commander Paylor's decoy plan succeeded, you're on the way coming back, the reporter came to her and she reported to us. If you kept your calm, we could save all the time and effort." She still has time to accuse me.

"Who is he?" Gale asks before I have time to spit at her.

"He's Cecelia's husband."

Cecelia's husband. The words resound in my head again and again. I clasp my hand to my mouth to stop the choking sound.

"Who's Cecelia?" asks Gale. He doesn't remember. He must have concentrated on watching me. Coin ignores Gale's question.

"Where's he now?" I ask.

"He's imprisoned."

"Why did he come out?" I don't need to ask why he reported me. He wants me dead, surely. If it was not for me, Cecelia wouldn't have to come back to the arena and die in the bloodbath. If it was not for me, she would still be with her family.

"Because the decoy, she was Cecelia's sister. He said she had known what he did. That's why she volunteered."

I turn my face down to the pillow. That's too much for me to handle. Gale calls desperately from his bed but I can't answer him.

"We need you recover from this soon. Decoy plan succeeded at keeping you alive but the Capitol are telling people about your death. The footage we filmed in Eight might be not enough. We will need you to come out again." Coin says and prepares to leave.

I beg from my pillow.

"Please… let him… live… Their children…" There was enough blood.

"I will consider." She leaves. I let my cry come out. The Game, it was used not only to threaten Districts and to show Capitol's capacity but also to divide us, turn us against each other. That's so cruel. And I remember what Prim told me, anything could happen in a war, people still have time for personal matter even they're supposed to be side by side.

"Katniss, please tell me what's going on?" Gale asks again.

I explain for him through my tear. His face hardens. He says after I finish.

"Katniss, I'm afraid we just created one more dangerous enemy."

We share the same thought again when we look at each other. _I will remember this, Katniss. _Her laugh comes to my nightmare that night, becomes the background sound for the hell happened in Eight, and the last image I saw of Cecelia's sister.

I'm out of hospital next day. I have no injury after all. I return to my hospital room after the last checking with doctors. I stop at the doorway. Madge is in there, beside Gale's bed. He's sleeping and her hand is choking his hair gently. My legs unconsciously back off. As I walk away a wave of feelings rushes in me. A bit of relief. Madge is not so out of her mind as I worried. I can tell for sure she has feelings for Gale. That thought is the cause of the jealousy I'm feeling right now. I didn't feel it when Gale held her in his arms out of destroyed Twelve and when he looked at her with sorrow in his eyes. Why now? Maybe because they're looked so right, so fit in with each other. And a bit of something I can't name.

"Katniss, you're out of hospital. Are you alright?"

I look up. I have returned to my family compartment. Prim is preparing for her afternoon training. She runs to me and hugs me. The strange feeling is still there. She has to leave me after a while. I find the parachute with my pearl in the closet and lie down with it. That's when the feeling's name comes to my mind. Loneliness. I miss his warm again. Peeta.

At night, two hovercrafts quietly release me, Gale, Bogg, Haymitch, some new guards and the film crew in the thin woods outside the fields of Nine.


	12. Chapter 12

**********************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 12**

District Nine – grain fields, farmer, harvester. It didn't leave any impression in my mind when I visited it during Victory Tour. The fields are vast but I had seen fields in Eleven before it. District Nine's tributes in my Games didn't last through the blood bath. And for now, as I climb up a tree to have a good view of it, my survival instinct tells me this is not good. Not like in Elevenwhere the fields and orchards mix together, in Nine, the fields spread around the town center and only stop when they meet the mountains and a range of thin woods becomes the border line. And the town center is kept by Peacekeepers. The rebels have been chased to the woods and the mountains. The grain fields turn out protecting the town really well. No one can pass through the fields without notice. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. At day, the hoverplanes watch from the sky. And they shoot flare all night. With losing Eleven into rebellion's hand, the Capitol reinforces strength to protect the grain sources in Nine. If they lose Nine, the Capitol food resources will be in very reduces circumstances and then Capitol invasion will be easy like a piece of cake, I remember what Plutarch had told me in the Command before I took off. But before that piece of cake, we might be choked with grain right here, in Nine.

"Katniss, the meeting is about to begin." I hear Gale calling me from the ground.

I climb down. After the landing, we travelled a little through the woods to meet the camp of rebels. I left the rest to take a climbing. Their camps are scattered everywhere in the woods and in the mountains, just a few of desolate farms left after the reinforcement. Those are the main food resources of the rebels.

"How is it?" Gale asks me while we walk together back to the main tent.

"It's… different." I don't know what to say. "It's… not safe like the woods. It's hard to fight."

"Yeah, I really wonder how they still stand." Gale whispers. I nod, totally agree with him. Rebels in Nine look nothing like soldiers, not like in Eight.

"Ah, here she is. Everyone, Katniss Everdeen is here." A voice excitedly calls out when I walk in the light of the main tent. People are gathering in and outside it. I'm fighting with my mind telling me to run away from the crowd. I did it in Eight and I can do it again. I walk in, let people hug me, touch me, ask me, pat me and try my hardest to smile, even a silly smile, I know it's silly. They tell me that from the center town, Peacekeepers used megaphone to announce my death and how the bombing razed to the ground District 8 for straight three days. Fulvia and the film crew have found a way to come near me. She proudly brags about me.

"No, she's fine and fought really brave. She took down two hoverplanes with her arrow."

I blush while people around me gasp in awe. They were not normal arrows after all. After a while continues like that, the crowd finally dismisses. I sit down on a wood log, tired of keeping my smile face.

"Here, have a drink." A young woman offers me a glass of water. "The crowd loves you but you're afraid of crowd, nothing is sadder than a one-sided love." She jokes but both I and Gale choke on water. People laugh good-heartedly but I can't stop glare at her. The leader, I guess so because when he claps his hand, people quiet down. They find their seat around him.

"Thank you for being here, Miss Everdeen. My name is Rye, the former mayor of District Nine. Your present here means a lot to us." He smiles and holds out his hand. I hesitate a little before shaking hand with him.

"Well, to tell the truth, we haven't fought much in Nine. We hoped that we could harvest first and fight later. Shame on us." He looks around. People of Nine smile timidly. "So, we don't have much weapons or soldiers."

"We know you called Thirteen for help but we didn't think the circumstance has been this serious. So this time we didn't come with much help." Bogg says. A reinforced group includes a former drunk, a mental disorder girl, a film crew and only seven soldiers. I sigh quietly.

"Oh, even if you wanted to send soldiers, it would be difficult to find place for landing. They will notice and I know the Air Force of Thirteen can't fight directly with them on the fields." Commander Rye shakes his head.

"How did you fight in those last months?" Gale asks.

"Because we didn't really fight against the Peacekeepers, they didn't put much effort on us either. The former Peacekeepers haven't been transferred like in other Districts. Some of them gave us information before hand about the reinforcement. And we retreated to the woods. We attacked their reconnaissance three times to collect weapons. That's all."

I see Gale trying to not to let out his groan. How can we fight this time?

"At least, they won't expect we attack directly and we have someone inside. Can I say that about some Peacekeepers giving you information, Commander?" Haymitch's voice surprises me. Well, he's still a Victor of a Quell, who won by his head. Commander Rye doesn't reply right away, he looks back at the young woman who made the joke. She blushes a little.

"We might say that." Rye turns back to us. "What's your plan?"

"I think I want to have a look at the map first." Haymitch nods his head absentmindedly. Bogg observes him then turn to me. "The rest of you should have a rest now."

Rye agrees and motions to his men. But I feel I'm left out again by Haymitch and that makes me angry.

"I want to hear." I say after others already went out.

"I don't guarantee I will have a plan in just a minute, sweetheart." Haymitch says without looking at me.

"Don't call me that!" I snap. "And don't you dare keep secret and lie to me this time."

"Katniss!" Gale calls. I realize I have stood up. Haymitch sighs and steps out of the tent. I follow him.

"Now, spit it out. Once and for all." He folds his arms, waiting. But the words are never my friend. The resentment, the bitterness I feel toward him loses their way from my heart to my mouth. I gulp and say.

"I can't believe you didn't rescue Peeta."

"I know." He replies.

"That's all?" He didn't say sorry, or anything resemble.

"And I can't believe you let him out of your sight that night." Right. We both failed.

"But he's not dead, not yet, Katniss. We still have a chance to save him, if you stop trying to kill me with your eyes anytime you can and start working with me. Our deal is still on and I'm still your mentor. So let the adults talk." With that, he starts walking back to the tent.

"I still want to hear." I say, being stubborn.

"I will tell you my plan right after you leave me peace to think about it, sweetheart." He throws that word at me before going inside. Gale steps out. He doesn't ask me about Haymitch, he must have heard us. He walks to me and silently leads me to a tent they have prepared for Thirteen's group. The film crew is rewatching the scene of me among the crowd and the guards are already sleeping. I don't feel I need to sleep yet so I find for me a tree near the tent and sit on its big root. Gale sits down beside me. Sometimes, the flare from afar shines up the sky.

"How's your arm?" I ask after a while.

"It's alright." He shrugs, then chuckles.

"What?"

"It seems like only when I'm hurt, I will get your attention. For example, the only time you kissed me is when I was whipped." He says and throws away a twig he has broken.

"Oh… you remember?" That's a bad reply. I know it when he turns his head to me. I can't see it clearly but I can guess he's hurt.

"I will never forget it. Because maybe it's the only one." He tells me. "I don't know if I get hurt again, you will give me one more or not."

"Gale, don't say that. It's not like that." The image of Madge and Gale suddenly appears in my mind.

"Katniss." Gale already leaned closer to me. I let him kiss me because I don't want Gale think I'm just pity him. The fresh smell of the woods at night fills up my nose but I don't taste anything. It doesn't feel right at all. I pull away and put my hand on his chest to stop him.

"Madge. What do you feel about Madge?" I gasp for air. The wave of feelings makes my lungs fail me.

"Why do you ask?" Gale hesitates for a moment.

"Just tell me." I feel mad at him and at myself.

"It's not like what I feel about you." Gale tells me but I already stood up.

"Forget about it." I mutter and go back to the tent. I wish I could do what I said, forget about it.


	13. Chapter 13

**************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 13**

I don't get any sleep all night. So when the first daylight finds its way into the tent, I immediately jump out of my sleeping bag. It's still early. There are only a few women preparing the breakfast for the camp already woke up. They greet me and gladly, they let me walk away without asking. As I walk to the main tent, Rye, Bogg and Haymitch walk out.

"Good morning, Miss Everdeen." Rye greets me. I reply him then jump to the topic.

"So, what's the plan?"

"Give me some time to sleep. I haven't stayed sober and awake this long for years." Haymitch pushes me aside and walks to our tent.

"Would you like to have a coffee with us?" I don't have time to follow Haymitch when Rye asks me. That's a little awkward for me. I'm not the fan of coffee but he looks at me with his really friendly face that I can't help it. It's not like I have any work to do. And if I turn back to our tent, surely I have to face Gale and after last night…

"Okay." I say.

Rye leads us to a small fire where that young woman is busy with some kind of soup.

"Hi, dad. Coffee, right?" She looks up and smiles when she saw us. Oh, she's his daughter. The mayor's daughter, leading a full life. That's why she seems cheerful all the time, I think. She pours us three cups of coffee.

"This is luxury." Bogg says after his first sip. We don't stay at the fire but walking through the woods. Rye leads the way. Finally we arrive at a cliff near the edge of the woods. From here, I can see almost District Nine with its golden fields under sunlight and at the far end are the gray buildings of the center town.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Rye asks quietly then drinks his coffee and looks at the scene proudly. No one say a word. And there's no need because no one can deny its beauty.

"It will be more beautiful if its products belong to people who raised them." Bogg says after a while.

"I know, that's why we need rebellion." Rye shrugs. "A reason for people in Nine didn't fight much is that we don't want to ruin this crop or destroy the fields." They really loves the fields.

Then he turns to me and gives me a smile.

"What your husband said was not entirely wrong, especially the part about after the war, there would be not much left. He was drugged or not, that's a good perspective."

I'm surprised. A commander of rebellion actually agreed with Peeta. And Bogg, one of Coin's men, doesn't seem like he will oppose.

"People called him traitor." I say bitterly.

"The problem is that he called for a ceasefire. A cease fire will push us back in a much more miserable life under a much stricter law than before. If we can find a better way, no one ever wants a war. And we're trying to finish it as soon as possible before the Capitol uses any desperate ways. Like nuclear. That will destroy everything. Or finding help from another country. That means invasion." Bogg finally says.

"Another country?" I ask, stunned.

"You don't think we are the only country in the world, do you? We guess the Capitol will try to collect this crop so that they can stand against us until they can make a good deal with other countries' leaders." Bogg explains for me.

I never think of this case. The conversation falls off. We finish our coffee and go back to the camp.

But until dinner, no one talk about the plan. Haymitch sleeps like death all day. People from other camp come and keep me busy all day to have time spill cold water in his face. Finally, after dinner we gather in the main tent. Haymitch says when people settle down.

"All right. My plan is simple. The Peacekeepers entrench in the town. With the train and District Six belongs to us, the hoverplanes are their only means of transport. So if we can occupy the town and their anti aircraft guns, we win. And how to occupy the town? After discussing with your commander, I understand that lately there was no raining so the town is mainly using water from an open watering basin. Then we poison it and when they're in chaos, we attack." He stops and waits for people digest his idea.

"How can we poison it when the basin is in the town?"

"Someone inside decided to help us. They will also give us a sign about the time." He turns to Rye's daughter. She blushes lightly.

"What's about the sterilize system?" A man raises his hand.

"They can't disinfect botanical toxic." Haymitch replies.

"What's kind of botanical toxic?" Another question.

"That question we should ask two specialists of the woods." Haymitch directs people's eyes toward me and Gale. Okay, this is something I can do. So that's it. People leave the tent and next day we start our mission. I and Gale come to Haymitch before our search.

"What's kind of toxic do you want?" I ask Haymitch.

"Deadly could raise suspicious before it can spread. Find me something make them tired from running to bathroom might be enough." He thinks for a moment and tells me.

I and Gale lose half a day to find enough devil's trumpet and other half to find enough honeysuckle, the only thing can detoxic the devil's trumpet.

"We don't want our prisoners run to bathroom all day, right?" I tell Gale while smell the sweetness of a honeysuckle flower. He's pretty quiet all day, surely because of last night. Fine, let him be.

The plan works out fine. The rebels crawl through the fields at night, a night that doesn't have much flare like always, just a few at planned time. And early in the next morning, we take over the town full of Peacekeepers holding their stomach or gathering around the bathroom. I see Rye's daughter jumping in the arms of one of a few Peacekeepers still fine, our allies. We imprison the rest in the Justice Building and give each one some honeysuckle leaves. Bogg and Haymitch immediately try to contact with outside. Now, we need the train come to bring water. The next day, the Capitol's hovercrafts come as a weekly schedule. With their own weapon in the town we take them down. I have another film for Coin, this time certainly convince people that I'm alive and fighting.

"What's wrong?" I ask Haymitch when I see him shuffling uneasy before the phone.

"Nothing. I'm waiting for our reinforcement."

"Why are you so impatient? With their own anti aircraft guns, it's not like we can't fight off their air force. They can't come near us." Gale reasons. Haymitch shrugs his shoulder and walks to the balcony of the Mayor's house. I follow him. We can see the golden fields around us from here. He glances at it then at me. Somehow his uneasiness transfers to me. We go to the A. , wandering around them. And right at midday, when the sun climbs to its highest position in the cloudless sky, the hoverplanes come again. The guns fire, prevent them from reaching to the town.

"Katniss, can you take down the last one from here?" Haymitch glues his eyes to the formation of hoverplanes.

"Not from here." I shake my head. The hoverplanes keep wandering around. They don't look like they want to bomb us. And the last one of them has the most different figure. I see rainbow color start appearing beneath it.

"Take it down. Now!" Haymitch suddenly growls.

I run to the field, Gale and the guards follow. But it's too far and the other hoverplanes start firing to keep us away. Gale pulls me back. They don't recognize me yet and let us run back to the town. That's when the fire blazes up. They have poured down oil, determined to burn to death the Nine, even thousands of Peacekeepers we're imprisoning. The fire gobbles up the fields, enclose the town. People gasp in despair. This is a desperate way of the Capitol. Or a planned way of Snow to bring down the whole country? I don't know and I might never have a chance to know. The fire reaches to the edge of the town when the night falls. The hoverplanes still around in the sky, make sure no one can come help us from the sky. People gather at the center square, crying. We can't do anything anymore. Please help us, please help us. People beg. I find Gale's embrace. At least in this moment I have him beside me.

"Katniss, I love you." Gale whispers to me.

"I know." But even in this moment I can't bring myself to tell him that I love him. Do I love him?

A loud crack makes everybody startle. I close my eyes. The gasoline warehouse? The blasting powder warehouse? The end of life? I'm sorry, Prim, I can't come back. I'm sorry, Peeta, I can't save you. Peeta. The thoughts flash in my mind.

"Katniss! Look!"

I'm not dead yet? I open my eyes and see a miracle.


	14. Chapter 14

******************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 14:**

I thought of it as a trouble. It means wet and cold. It means I can't go out hunting. It means the games staying in their net. Now it means life, it means hope, it's my savior, our savior. The rain.

I don't know how it comes after months didn't but what's matter is it's finally here, when we need it the most. May be people's begging, praying did the trick. The rain starts lightly but soon becomes downpour. The Capitol hoverplanes have to retreat because of the heavy rain. The fire is weakened. No one run from the rain like people should do normally. I stand idly beside Gale. I know I'm crying from the warm feeling inside my eyes. I will survive, I will come back to Prim.

In the morning, there is only small fire here or there. The pink light of a new dawn shines upon ravaged completely fields. Commander Rye looks at damp ashes on his palm. Realizing me watching, he smiles at me.

"We still lost this crop. But don't worry, these ashes will fertilize the soil. And no one hurt, right? We will rebuild a better world!" The last sentence he says loudly for everyone hearing. They cheer, agree with him. Their optimistic minds finally take effect on me, create in my head an image. An image of a golden hair boy smile at me, behind him is the golden grain field shining under the sun.

We release the prisoners. They don't need any convince to decide which side they should choose now. We now have a lot of pilots and soldiers to protect District Nine. The train arrives. Our hovercraft arrives. I return to District Thirteen, hoping for the early Capitol invasion. Then I can rescue Peeta and take him and Prim to Nine for a visit, attending the wedding of Rye's daughter. They will love people of Nine for sure. But things don't always work like the miracle in Nine.

"Hey, Katniss." Finnick knocks lightly with his feet at the open door. He's bringing his tray for dinner. I had to go to hospital for a check just in case and was wondering I should take a sleep without eating or not. I'm still little excited from good things happened in Nine so I don't feel like I want to eat.

"Hey, Finnick." I reply.

"You seems like you had a good time." He takes a chair and sits down beside my bed. I frown.

"Like anyone can have a good time in this war." I tell him and reach to my own food tray on the table next to me.

"It's a good thing you can keep your good mood, you know." He tells me. "Oh, and I'm sure you will want to watch this." Finnick turns on the television.

"They want to launch it as soon as possible. Your newest propo. An important victory can lead us to Capitol." He grins at me. I shrug and dig in my dish.

After a while, the rebels cut off the show on Capitol program and launch the propo. Unlike the propo in Eight they launched right before I went to Nine, this time I can watch it. No one died, even the pilots of hoverplanes we took down. I can't believe even when the fire enclosed us, the film crew still had their mind to turn on the camera. They show disbelief and despair faces of prisoners. Everyone needs to know how cruel the Capitol was when they decided to burn their own men without any negotiation. Last time, the propo ended with me shouting at Snow. This time it ends with the sentence Commander Rye saying to people in Nine, to people in Panem.

"We will rebuild a better world!"

They make it like I'm the one who said that with image of me watching the dawn and the sentence appears in golden letters on the dark background of the mountains, then sunlight covers the scene. And the rebels return the television to the Capitol.

"We will rebuild a better world! You're cool." Finnick praises me.

"Commander Rye of Nine said that, not me." I tell him. That's the message, that's the promise of the rebels. We can bring to Panem a better future and there will be no more Hunger Games.

"Can you turn it off now?" I concentrate in my food.

"Katniss!" Finnick taps my arm with his hand, forgetting about the remote control in it.

"Aw, what is this for?" I snap. He's still watching the television. I wonder…

"Katniss, do you really believe what you just said? What they told you to say?" That's Peeta. Clearly, to counter my propo, Capitol has launched a live interview. I gasp. He looks terrible. The effort of Capitol prep team can't hide away the damages. He lost weight, his hand trembles, bags appear under his eyes and his eyes are full of nervous. What have they done to him?

"Ask yourself, can you really believe people you work with? Their intention, their motive. I know you're just trying to protect people you love but do they really want the same thing as you? Don't let them take advantage of you. Find out who they are, what they want before it's too late." Says Peeta.

Then black screen. Seal of Panem. Show over.

Quickly Finnick turns off the television. He grips my arm.

"Katniss, we didn't see anything. Do you understand?"

"Why?" I'm puzzled.

"They will be here, soon. To check on you. If you let them know you watch it, surely they will think of the effect what Peeta's said has on you. You show them your suspicion, your deal with them might go off. They can stab you from the back. You didn't see it, okay?"

I nod solemnly. Surely I don't believe Coin but I will have to pretend again.

"Do you believe it, Finnick? About a better world? Do you believe them?" I ask.

"I hope and believe people can make it. But I don't believe politicians. We should never trust them." Finnick replies with a disgusted face. "Now, turn back to your dish. Want me to feed you?" He uses his flirting voice. We manage a normal conversation when Plutarch and Fulvia enter. We praise the propo, discuss about its affection. I'm grateful it's not Coin who came. I might lose my temper and let her know. But Plutarch and Fulvia believe me.

No one mentions Peeta.


	15. Chapter 15

**********************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 15**

I'm back to my family's compartment. I'm back to my schedule. But my little inner peace I got from believing the rebellion can help Peeta, can save us, it didn't come back. Instead, my bad habit of biting my fingernail is back. I don't even know it back until Prim notices a strange noise at night. She tries to stop me but it's useless. Because every night, I have more and more nightmares about Peeta. He doesn't accuse me anymore, he just stands there, with his haggard figure, his bruised arms because of injections and looks at me sadly. I can't stand it. I'd rather hear his accusations. So I give up sleep, holding tightly my pearl and biting my nails all night while the questions replay in my head. Who are they? What do they want? Find out but how? Who can I ask? I'm not even sure about if I can talk about it inside Thirteen or it's woods. Surely, Peeta has been drugged but if everything he said was wrong then why did they worry about me hearing it, why did they never mention about it, about Peeta?

It has been a week since Peeta's show and Coin hasn't called me to the Command. I'm only needed to come to the studio for the propo about dead tributes, tell people about Rue, about Thresh, Wiress, Mags. Do they really believe I didn't watch Peeta's show? Or they leave me out just in case, just for precaution? Will someday an accident happen? They still need me but what about my family, Peeta's mom, Gale and his family? Oh no, not the last one, I believe.

"You get it back?" I stared at the communicuff on his wrist one morning when we ate breakfast together.

"Yes, they thought if I'm going to be in the field with you, it could be a backup system of communication," said Gale.

I didn't say anything after that though inside my blood was boiling. I had to stay low, stay calm for my own sake, Prim's sake, I knew that but it's harder and harder. Of course with his effort and belief in rebels, Gale gained their trust. Good for him. I'm sure that he saw Peeta and he didn't tell me, of course he was told not to tell me. I feel betrayed. He chose them over me. I tried my hard to be their good puppet and they still doubt me, and now it seems like I lost my best friend to them. It's worse than the time after my first Game when Snow harassed my mind. That time, he still was in my side.

"Stop, Katniss!" I'm pulled out of my furious mind. Finnick is grabbing my arm. "It's already dead."

I look down and realize I have stabbed my game, a buck, more than needed. Greasy Sae will complain for sure. I plump myself down to the ground. Finnick releases my arm. He has been out hunting with me lately because Gale has been busy with Beetee all over their traps.

"Do you want to talk?" Finnick asks quietly after ditching our communicator under a bush nearby. I shake my head. There's too much things to ask, to doubt, to worry, to be afraid of, I don't know how to put them in words.

"I think I can help you with your fingernail." Finnick says. I started biting it without notice again. He pulls out his piece of rope.

"Try making knots instead of bite your fingernail." He instructs. I hesitate but he keeps insisting. It turns out helpful. Then he collects the communicators, hauls the game back and I just silently follow, busy myself with making knots. My fingernails are saved, at least.

"What's that?" Gale asks next day while we go to training together.

"A rope." I simply say, still make and untie knots.

"You'd prefer a rope than talking to me?" He asks. Yes, I have ignored him lately to avoid any conversation can trigger the fire inside me. I pause.

"Then what's been going on lately?" Now I give him a chance to tell me what they think about Peeta's show. I see the realization in his eyes but he shifts them away.

"What do you mean?" That's wrong reply, Gale. I gulp down the anger rising up in my throat.

"You know what I mean. We know each other better than this." I lower my voice with all my strength.

"Katniss, I'm sorry but everyone was afraid that would make you sick." Gale finally says.

"Ah, not as sick as you, you of all people, lying and keeping secrets from me for Coin." I say bitterly. His communicuff interrupts us. I smirk at him.

"There she is. Better run. You have things to tell her."

I stay just long enough to see the pain in his eyes but I don't care. He turns and stamps away in anger. For the first time since the deal with Coin, I skip my schedule. I go to Madge's hospital room, where I don't need to talk. If I talk, I might scream and can't stop. This pressure is too much. I'm afraid I might break or losing myself forever soon. And there will be no one to pick up my pieces. The strong, steady and warm hands of Peeta can hold and keep me in one piece but he's not here. If I break, he will not be anywhere, he will die.

"Katniss?"

I look up from the rope. Madge is looking at me with her lost eyes. Then she springs up from the bed, grips my arms.

"Katniss, why are you here? Run away, they're here to capture you. RUN!" She must have a nightmare. I hold her tightly, whisper into her ear.

"Madge, it's all right. I'm safe. We're safe. We're safe." Suddenly, I think mentioning Gale might be a good idea. "Remember, Gale and I brought you out of Twelve. You're safe now." And it is. She stops struggling. After a few minutes, her grip is loosened. I lower her back to her pillow.

"Katniss, I'm sorry." She whispers.

"For what? You did nothing wrong."

"I… I love Gale." Actually when Madge speaks it out loud, I'm glad. I'm glad right this time, I can hear a truth.

"I… When you went out of your hospital room with him… I kissed him." She struggles with herself. That afternoon.

"It's okay, Madge." I tell her.

"No, it's not. He loves you, I know. And I'm dirty, Katniss. I'm dirty." She cries quietly.

"Madge, you're not dirty. If anyone says that to you, tell me and I will shoot them." I squeeze her hand. "And about Gale, you don't need to say sorry. It's okay. It's alright." I don't know what to say. I just know she doesn't need to say sorry for loving Gale like no one else need to apology if they feel hungry. It's normal, it's natural, right.

"Go back to sleep." I tell her.

"Can you sing for me?" She asks after closing her eyes.

"Sing?"

"Please."

It's hard to decline. And one song just pops in my head, a lullaby that my father sang to me just a few times and then he just stopped. Maybe I think of this song because right now I really want to be the swallow in it, to be free from these walls and these problems. I also want Madge be free from her hell. So I begin.

On a wagon bound for market  
There's a calf with a mournful eye.  
High above him there's a swallow  
Winging swiftly through the sky.

How the winds are laughing  
They laugh with all their might  
Laugh and laugh the whole day through  
And half the summer's night.

Dona, dona, dona, dona,  
Dona, dona, dona, do,  
Dona, dona, dona, dona,  
Dona, dona, dona, do.

"Stop complaining," said the farmer,  
"Who told you a calf to be?  
Why don't you have wings to fly with  
Like the swallow so proud and free?"

How the winds are laughing ...

Calves are easily bound and slaughtered  
Never knowing the reason why.  
But whoever treasures freedom,  
Like the swallow has learned to fly.

I'm deep down in my memory with my father. I used to stay awake after he sang this song and asked him why it's so unfair to the calf, it couldn't fly even if it had learned. He would smile and tell me the calf still could run but the problem was there was a farmer to keep him. And he would sing another song and I would fall to sleep.

"Brilliant!" Someone whispers.

I turn around. At the doorway is Plutarch, Fulvia and the film crew. I step out to not to interrupt Madge's sleep.

"We were looking for you. We think it will be good idea to make a propo about you and Peeta's story. Fortunately, we all went looking for you together, right?" Fulvia says excitedly. The last one she says to the crew. My song was recorded.

"You're just brilliant." She turns back.

"It's just a lullaby." I tell her, a little annoyed because I don't want them hear my song, my father's song.

"Actually, it's not just a lullaby. Who sang it for you?" Plutarch asks.

"My father." I reply, wonder what he meant.

"I guess your father's death was not an accident after all. This song actually was used as anthem by a lot of hidden rebellion groups." He tells me. Ah, that's why my father stopped. He sang to me just enough times to sow a seed of wanting freedom into me, not enough to be discovered. I'm not really a bird to fly away but I will not be a calf for anyone, Capitol or rebels, the farmer bind. I will wait for my chance and run to freedom.


	16. Chapter 16

**************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 16**

Thinking back, maybe the odds has played with me all along. It threw me at desperate then pulled me out. I have found helping from unexpected sources. A bread from a boy I had never talked to. Thresh spared my life in the Game. Finnick and the morphling woman from Six helped me save Peeta when I couldn't. Cecelia's sister. The rain in Nine. And now, from my father, even though he's not here anymore. His rebellion song helps me gain some more trust of the rebels. About the questions torturing my mind lately, I decide to think of them like the game in the woods and I'm a hunter. Wait and wait, I know the answers will come for me one day.

_My name is Katniss Everdeen. I'm seventeen. I'm from District Twelve but there is no more District Twelve. Capitol destroyed it. They are imprisoning and drugging Peeta. I hate them and President Snow. I also don't believe the rebellion leaders and President Coin. I'm waiting for the truth. I'm waiting for my chance._

_Slow down your breath. Move in silence. Attack quickly. Don't hesitate._

The squirrel falls down from a branch. I smile. I can do it if I think of it this way. I collect the game and turn back to a pond where Finnick is catching fishes. He gazes at the little pond, surely missing the great ocean in his District. Gale hasn't been out hunting with me for months and maybe it will be more. And since our quarrel, we just had some awkward conversations and they all fell down.

"Finnick, let's go back." I call out.

"Wow, Katniss. Don't you ever think of a rebellion by the squirrels against you?" Finnick jokes when he sees three squirrels in my hands. I roll my eyes and throw them at him.

"You bring them and they will attack you."

After dinner, they call me to the Command. They started calling me again after my father's song was recorded. Not much information but they let me know how the rebels did lately. They're struggling with Capitol Peacekeeper Army in Three, Two and One. Other Districts belong to rebels though the Capitol keeps attacking with air force.

I go to the Command, find for me a seat between Finnick and Plutarch. It will be a casual meeting. I guess today they will launch propo about me singing a rebel's song and something about my father being a member of a rebellion group and murdered in a fake accident. I pay all my attentions at making knots. Finnick teaches me a new knot secretly under the table. I hear my song mixed with the voice from a Capitol show. The Capitol tech masters, after four times being attacked at surprise, this time certainly are trying to fight off Beetee. After a while, they give up and my propo is launched entirely. When it ends, people clap their hands. They praise me. I note to myself to never let anyone record me singing again. Just this time. My father's songs will always be my treasure memory, my pain and consolation, something I rarely share with myself. I just don't want them to be recorded.

Just when Coin opens her mouth, preparing to say something then dismiss us, the seal of Panem appears. It's no longer the entertainment show but something political. President Snow appears behind his podium. A white rose stays proudly in his lapel.

"People of Panem, the Capitol gave you a chance to come back the right way and receive our mercy again. But you decline and continue your betrayal. Panem has been stained by your dirty betrayal and you must pay. The Capitol opens our arm one last time for family of people who chose to fight for us. And to Katniss Everdeen, who might be remembered in history of Panem as the one lead her own people to hell, the Capitol will give you last chance to see the consequences of your actions."

The screen changes, showing images of destruction, how the rebels destroyed the country, how the Capitol punished them. I'm caught off guard by the last scene. Not an image, but the scene in the Capitol's studio. Peeta. He's sitting lonely behind a table. When the camera zooms in, I can see sweat broken on his temple. His eye bags are darker than the last time I saw him. But it's the look in his eyes—angry yet unfocused—that frightens me the most. A consequence of my actions. My fault. My hands tremble under the table. Finnick grasps them tightly.

"Katniss…" His face contorts in effort to say my name. "…how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you…in Thirteen…" He inhales sharply, as if fighting for air; his eyes look insane. "Dead by morning!"

Things occur quickly. I hear Snow's voice ordering the camera to end. Then the shouting inside the studio calls for guards. Some flash of Peeta struggling with people. The camera dives to the floor and we can only see people's foot. A gun and Peeta's cry of pain sounds at the same time.

And his blood splatters the floor.

My world goes silent and movements become a crawl film. I can see people open and close their mouths, surely to argue about if they can believe Peeta but I can't hear anything except Peeta's cry of pain resounding inside me. The gun shot. His blood.

Father! The child inside me cries. Where are you? Come back, come back.

I'm panic.

I have nowhere to hide, the present me and the past me are both in pain. We're two desolate island in the middle of Pain ocean.

I let Finnick help me up then Bogg lead us out. We come down and down. Even if he leads me to death, it's alright. There are people waiting for me. We arrive at the bunker. Ah, they decided to believe him that Capitol will attack Thirteen tonight, with a price. His blood. Finnick helps me find my family's assigned space. He says something but I can only manage my head to look up at him. He shakes his head and goes away. People look at me curiously. Oh, please. I close my eyes to not to see. Finnick comes back with my mother. He also brings three packs for my family beside his. Then he leaves to his own space. My mother grabs my shoulder. She speaks and speaks. Only one word sneaks through the fog around my mind. Prim. My little sister. My sweet Prim. I'm frightened. I have been fallen to depression just like my mother when my father died. Prim. The child mourning for her father and the girl mourning for her Peeta subside, the girl who loves and cares for her sister rises up and saves me.

"Prim!" I gasp.


	17. Chapter 17

******************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 17**

My world turns back to normal.

"Katniss, where is she? She's supposed to come straight down from the hospital. She left before me. Where is she?" My mother asks anxiously. Where could she have gone? I concentrate. She knew mother would come down right after her and the command would make sure about my safety. Then why did she go anywhere else? Like in the bombing in Twelve, she went back to help. Who? People will be lead down here by the soldiers. Not people? The ugly face of Buttercup strikes my mind.

"Buttercup! She went back to get him!"

"Oh, no!" My mother knows I was right. We jump up, trying to go back against the crowd. I can see people have already gone inside the bunker and the soldiers at the gate preparing to close it. If it closes, even a bomb can't open it. I cry.

"Please wait! My sister…" My voice fails me and loses in the noise of the crowd and the gears moving. I push and I push. My mother follows and shouts apologizes to people I pushed. The space between the doors shrinks and shrinks. I jump three steps a time to the soldiers.

"Please wait! My sister's still outside!" I pull one of the soldiers' uniform while put one of my legs between the doors. Am I too late? The soldier that's standing nearest to the gate controller uses all his strength to pull back a big steel lever. I put my head through the space and scream Prim's name. My mother reaches us and begins to explain and plead the soldiers.

"We're coming!" I let out a relief sigh when I hear footstep on the stair and Gale's voice.

"They're coming." I tell the soldiers. They slide the gate a little more. Prim and Gale with his hand holding baggage comes in my sight. I pull Prim inside, squashing both her and her damn cat in a hug.

"What were you thinking?" I don't know if I can be alive without both Peeta and her.

"I'm sorry but I couldn't leave him behind again. You should have seen him pacing the room and howling. He'd come back to protect us." She whispers.

"Okay, Katniss, she's alright now. Let's come back to our space." My mother says next to us. I let go of Prim and let mother lead her. I turn to Gale. What he's holding is our stuff, my mother's box of medical supplies and my hunting bag. He gives them to me.

"Thank you... for everything." I say simply and I know he will understand how much I mean. The gate behind us finally closes. We walk down together.

"Katniss." Gale is about to begin but I cut him off.

"No, don't say anything, Gale." I don't want a confirmation, especially from him. He's too much like me. If he says it, the truth will have a new weight and it might crush me.

He sighs. We part when we reach my family's space.

"If you need anything, I'm in Forty seven, okay?" he says. I nod.

Prim has settled a place for Buttercup on the lower bunk. I give my mother her box and sit down, checking what Gale rescued for me. The plant book, my father's jacket, my parent's wedding photo and my parachute. My hands shake a little when I turn the parachute upside down and my pearl falls into my palm. I squeeze it tightly as if it can bring me to him. Afraid of being on the edge of break down again, I put the pearl back to the parachute, bury it deep in my bag so that I can guard it and it can't break me.

Coin's voice cuts off the sirens to thank people for the contribution and announce that this is not a drill, as Peeta Mellark, the District 12 victor, has possibly made a televised reference to an attack on 13 tonight.

To prove that's not a possibility any more, the first bomb hits. The bunker shudders and the lights go out. It must feel like this in the mine, buried deep down below tons of earth, I think. I find Prim's hand in the darkness and feel the warm of my mother's slender hand on my shoulder. There's a hum of a generator and a dim wavering glow replaces the stark lighting that is the norm in 13. The shock caused by the first bomb was over. People start talking in whisper, as if everyone is afraid a loud noise can crack the bunker. Even children have to keep their frightening cry down to whimper.

Coin's voice, perhaps a shade grimmer, fills the bunker, the volume level flickering with the lights. "Apparently, Peeta Mellark's information was sound and we owe him a great debt of gratitude. Sensors indicate the first missile was not nuclear, but very powerful. We expect more will follow. For the duration of the attack, citizens are to stay in their assigned areas unless otherwise notified."

Soldiers come and arrange group to use the bathroom. After a while, my mother's called by first-aid station. After she leaves, I curl up with Prim and Buttercup on the mattress. I whisper.

"I'm sorry, Prim." She shifts her eyes from Buttercup to me.

"Why?"

"I almost left you. Like mother when father died." I tell her. She puts events together quickly.

"It's alright." She rubs my shoulder. Thinking for a while, she says softly. "I think the odds be with him. He almost died several times. They won't kill him because he's the only one they have to hurt you."

"You really believe that?" I murmur. Yes, it's their traditional way to hurt, to control people. But…Rhosy's voice sounds in my head. _If he can, he will bring down everything. _Did Snow finish the council? If he has started his work to bring Panem down, he won't mind me, he won't mind keeping hostage. Prim squeezes my hand to confirm her belief and I embrace her belief like it's an anchor to keep me sane.


	18. Chapter 18

**********************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 18**

The bombing goes on and on. We only know those bombs were not nuclear by brief audio updates from Coin. I wonder why Snow didn't launch nuclear missiles yet. With the amount of bomb he has used, it doesn't seem like he doesn't want to destroy Thirteen. I drag myself through daily schedule. Waiting and guessing make me tired, both mentally and physically. People offer me their sympathetic looks, which make me want to dig for myself a deeper bunker. At the food station, I can see the haggard feature of Mrs Mellark. She didn't see the blood, didn't hear his cry but she can guess what might happen to a prisoner of Capitol when he dared to report their bombing campaign's time to us. A slight nod is the only thing we can give each other.

Not only Prim, but Finnick tries to give me hope, tried to reason about how important I am so that Snow won't harm Peeta since he still can use the hostage card. Maybe he tells me that to reassure himself about Annie. We sit in silence, our hands busy making and releasing knots.

"Did you fall in love with Annie right away?" I ask.

"No." A long time passes before he adds, "She crept up on me."

"Crept up?"

"Well, it's like a habit you can never give up. She gives me feeling that's no one can give me. She makes me whole." Finnick gazes at an invisible point before him and smiles lightly.

I consider what he just said. Those two first things are right about me and Peeta. But that's because of the Game. Somehow, I don't think Peeta would be happy if I told him I loved him only because we had experienced the Game together. Neither do I. If we didn't have to go in the arena together, I don't think anything could have happened. He would always be the boy with the bread whom I would always want to pay back the debt. But no more than that. And those two things would describe me and Gale. The latter, making me whole, I don't quite get it.

"Do you think I love Peeta?" I ask quietly.

"Yes. After your first Game, I thought that was an act, of course from you, and you would bring it on to the Quell." Right, everyone can tell it was an act. "Until Peeta hit that force field and nearly died that I realized…" Finnick hesitates. "…that you do love him. I'm not saying in what way. Maybe you don't know yourself. But you care about him."

I laugh bitterly inside. I don't know why I bring it up with Finnick. What does it matter now if I can figure out my feelings when… Peeta might be already dead? What does it matter now when I might never have a chance to make it up to him? I'm always slow in this kind of stuff. Too slow.

"I don't know which one will hurt me more, his death or being imprisoned and tortured." I tell Finnick. He considers and agrees with me. For a moment, I believe the answer is the latter because it can hurt longer.

Surprisingly, the only thing can distracts me a little comes from the creature I hate. Buttercup. When we were still in Twelve, in nights when they cut off power, I used to play the game which I called Crazy Cat by wiggle the flashlight beam on the wall and Buttercup would chase it like crazy. This game of mine entertains people in Thirteen in this dark time. Looking at the delightful faces of children gathering to watch Buttercup, I feel I'm being useful, being a little busy with the mission of bringing joy to people. So I can release my mind from worrying for some times.

Maybe it's the fourth or fifth day, after a time there's no bomb hitting, Coin finally announces that we can leave the bunker. The bombing destroyed our old quarters and we have to follow the soldiers to our new compartment. Right when I leave the bunker, Boggs comes and get me, Gale and Finnick. I give Prim a squeeze to assure her, or me? Boggs doesn't give us any information, just silently lead us. But I swear I see him checking me. That stirs my guts. We arrive at Special Defense. I guess the old Command room being damaged. I find all the familiar faces of the Command and…

"Commander Rye!"

Rye was sitting next to Coin, looks up and greets me.

"Miss Everdeen!"

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"Soldier Everdeen, you should take a seat and we can inform you fully." Coin cuts in. I frown. The last coming people take seat. Plutarch starts.

"As you know, five days ago, Capitol opened their bombing campaign to destroy us. Fortunately, there's no sign of nuclear. They were not bombing only Thirteen, but also Four, Eight, Eleven, where the main force of rebellion stationed. They caused a certain amount of damages. But meanwhile, from Nine, our new Air Force used the chance and attacked them in One, Two and Three and now we have the control of One and Three, and destroyed their main fuel station in Two. That made their bombing team retreat. And also, a rescue team sneaked into Capitol." Both Finnick and I spring up. Plutarch doesn't look at either of us, just continues his report.

"In short time, we rescued Johanna Mason, Victor from Seven and Annie Cresta, Victor from Four. We don't think Enobaria from Two has been imprisoned at all." Finnick lets out his breath he's holding and slumps down to his chair. "They were brought to Nine and transferred to Thirteen just now. You can meet them at the hospital." He finishes without looking at me even once. I swing my head to Haymitch and see him sinking deep down in his chair.

"What's about Peeta?" It's Gale who's asking because I can't make any sound out of my throat anymore.

"We couldn't find him. But with the amount of blood we found in the filming room, we don't think…" Commander Rye says.

"The doctors of Capitol can fix him. They fixed him when he almost died of blood lost in our first Game." My false hope speaks through my mouth. I prepared myself to accept the worst but the hope still stubbornly clings to me.

"If they need him." Plutarch says. "However, just now when he knew of the rescue and the bombing campaign failing, Snow had Peeta's stylist and prep team executed on lived television show. We didn't know they were imprisoned, that's why we didn't rescue them."

Portia and Peeta's prep team. I gasp. That means he doesn't need Peeta's appearance anymore, doesn't need Peeta anymore.

"No, he's not dead yet. If he is, I will feel it. I must feel it." I say.

Why do I madly hold on to a false hope? Didn't I fall in despair after watching his last scene, believing I lost him? Why can I accept his death now when people accept it? Ah, that's it. I told Finnick I didn't know which one would hurt me more, and now, they give me a chance to compare. How silly I am, to think his death wouldn't hurt me as much as his imprisoned. I don't want that pain, I don't want to fall into that silence world again. Because I have to live on for Prim and Peeta has to be alive for me to do that. He has to.


	19. Chapter 19

**********************************************************To guest: Thank you for your consideration. About your questions, first of all, the secret will be revealed in the end and sorry if my title made any wrong impressions. I'm not good at naming. If you can give me your idea about it, I will really appreciate. Second of all, about the love triangle, I admit I made it frustration because to tell the truth, I'm not a fan of Gale. Sometimes I just write and write, totally forget about his feelings. Sorry if I made it conflict with the original first and second book.**

* * *

**************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 19**

I throw myself in training and training. Class after class then hunting. After the bombing, I have to walk farther in the woods to hunt.

"Katniss, slow down!" Gale exclaims one day when I'm about to chase after a game. He finished with Beetee and their traps, as he said. I know he wants to spend time with me, watch out for me in case I break down or go mad, as everyone say when they think I can't hear them. No one, except me and Mrs Mellark, believes in Peeta's chance of being alive.

"What's wrong?" I ask after shoot an arrow without hoping it could find the target.

"You're pushing yourself too hard." Gale sighs. "If he was alive…"

"He is!" I grunt.

"Okay!" He shrugs. "If he is still alive after what he did against them, they won't suddenly decide to kill him now. And if you're exhausted from training, you can't help him or anyone. They won't let you in the Invasion."

"What?!"

"They're worry about your mental condition. Prim and your mother are worry, too. I know you really want to find him and I won't stop you, but take it easy, slow down, okay?" Gale says.

"What do you think?" I ask after a while. "Do you believe me?"

"Katniss, you don't know how much I wish he's alive." Gale looks at me sadly. "He will never do wrong. You will always remember him at his perfection. I will never have a chance fairly won against a dead person."

"Stop, Gale. Don't talk like I'm a reward of a fight. That's my life and my choice." I say angrily. On the other hand, I realize lately I was pushing Gale out of my life and how hurt he is because of that. Since our quarrel, right, even though in the bombing he was the one who turned back for my sister and my things. He must saw I found Finnick, not him, during the bombing and now I just put my head into training without exchanging conversation with people. And that brings the guilty feeling into my mind. I never want to hurt him.

"Then what's your choice?" He asks quietly.

"I… It's not the right time, Gale." I say, feeling miserably.

"I know your choice, though. But Katniss, remember I will always watch out for your back." He gives a really quick kiss on my cheek and walks away. A habit that I can never give up. A person who can tell what I feel before I can realize it. If I never knew about Peeta's feelings for me… Just if. Why can't they just stay my friends? I don't even want to begin a family. Damn it. I touch my cheek where Gale just kissed. Hot and different.

My communicator starts beeping. My hunting time ended. It's not the right time, I tell myself. I can't bring myself to think about what I should do with Gale's feelings right now. _But slow down_. Okay. _Your family is worry about you_. Okay. These are things I can consider now.

That night, instead of self training, I sit quietly, annoying Buttercup with my rope, waiting for Prim and mother. Prim comes back first.

"Hey, little duck." I smile with her. "Can you do something with my back? All the training hurt it."

Her eyes brighten.

"Of course, can you wait for me take a shower first?" She says and quickly goes change her clothes.

"I'm sorry, Prim." I say when she's giving me a massage. Lately, I have to say sorry a lot. Sigh. I'm supposed to take care of her but…"I make you and mother worry. But I'm fine so don't worry, okay?"

"We just want you to be happy, Katniss." She says sweetly. I turn around and hug her. She rubs my back and suddenly, pulls out.

"Ah, I forget to tell you. They're going to throw a wedding for your friend, Finnick Odair." She says, all excited. "Isn't it great?"

Oh, Finnick and Annie. Right, their wedding will be a bright point in these dark days. I'm happy for them but a little jealousy. I remember about my imaginary toasting Peeta described in his interview.

"Katniss?" Prim asks.

"Oh, yes, it's great." I turn back to her. And an idea comes up. "Maybe I will give them some dresses in our house in Twelve for the wedding gown." My wedding gowns Cinna designed for me were brought back to Capitol but I still have a lot of dresses and I may never wear them again. It will be a waste if I abandon them in the closet.

"That's great idea." Prim claps her hand.

"Okay, the little duck is quacking. Finish my back." I poke her forehead softly. Tomorrow I will find Plutarch for my idea. It's not hard to guess the wedding is his idea. The former Gamemaker. The entertainer.

And as he wished, the event brings a festival-like atmosphere to the whole District. We try to take advantage of all resources we have. Children volunteer to sing District Four's wedding song. People volunteer to help make decorations. The kitchen is busy preparing a wedding cake for the couple under the instructions of Mrs Mellark, though the frosting will have to be simple. The main topic of every conversation is about the wedding. We all so starved for something good to happen that we want to be part of it.

When I sit together with Annie Cresta, a lovely if somewhat bedraggled young woman—dark tangled hair, sea green eyes, in the hovercraft to my house in Twelve, I'm a little worry because I don't know much about her, except Finnick loves her and she's mad. But then I decide she's alright, maybe not in normal standard but at least in my standard. She laughs at odd places in conversation, but not much like Rhosy, gazes blankly at some point in the air, like Madge, and sometimes presses her hands on her ears as if to block out painful sound, well, like me. The most important thing is that Annie loves Finnick as much as he loves her. I see them together in dining hall, happy and indivisible.

The day of the wedding finally arrives. It's simple with the decorations of autumn foliage, the music of children's choir and a lone fiddler who made it out of Twelve with his instruments, with the variety of everyday clothes people wear. But it doesn't matter because nothing can compete with the beauty of the couple. Who can look past the radiant faces of two people for whom this day was once a virtual impossibility? A man from Ten conducts the ceremony, since it's similar to the one used in his district. But there are unique touches of District 4. A net woven from long grass that covers the couple during their vows, the touching of each other's lips with salt water, and the ancient wedding song, which likens marriage to a sea voyage.

No one have to pretend to be happy for them.

And then we dance. Dancing must be the only thing we, people from Twelve – the smallest, poorest District, can be proud of. I see Greasy Sae dancing with Gale while I dance with Prim We teach steps to Thirteen's people, we join hand and make a giant, spinning circle, we laugh and enjoy. Nothing silly, joyful, or fun has happened in so long.

I lean against the wall and watch people continue the dance. I didn't laugh like this in a long time and that makes me a little tired.

"Beautiful, huh?" Her smell startles me first. I swing my head. Rhosy stands behind a decorating bush, watching people. _I will remember this._

"You know, the wedding in Ten is similar to this."

"I know." I reply carefully.

"Do you know in Ten we used to have a promise among close people? Best friends, family, husband and wife."

I don't know where she's going so I don't say anything.

"When a horse or a dog almost comes to the death, the owner is supposed to end their life to free them from suffering. Because horses and dogs are not like cows, they are our friends for years so we can't bring them to slaughter house. We have to do it by our own hands for the intimacy. The same with people. If a person is in pain, so much pain that he wants to die, and there is no way to help him, his closest person will be supposed to kill him. We used to have this kind of promise. Not anymore. " She says casually like telling a bed story.

"What do you want with me?" I grunt.

"Oh, nothing. Just telling you so if someday you witness it, you won't be surprise." And she walks away with her rosy smell.


	20. Chapter 20

**********************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 20**

After the wedding, Thirteen turns back to the war. The event gives people things to remember, to smile while they finish fixing destroyed compartments. I turn back to my training, trying hard to keep my head cool, keep my head low and wait for their order. I know with the main fuel station in Two destroyed, the Capitol now has to give up on air-raid and falls back to defensive but still a very strong defensive. That's what they updated to the whole district. I just know what everyone knows. _They won't let you in the Invasion. _Gale's warning repeats in my mind. And what I don't know is that they already decided that, at first by left me out in the mission in Two.

"You! What are you still doing here?"

I just walked out of Madge's new room. She was finally stable enough to get out of the hospital. I must say she's stronger than I thought. And they still give me times to spend with her. We use these times to take our nap and this afternoon is no different. I turn my head and facing Johanna. I didn't really see her after the rescue. She looks terrible, compare with how she was before and in the Quell, damaged and fragile with strong and brutal. But her presence still can triggers an invisible pain in my arm, where she dug out the tracker, and my mind immediately warns me about danger. I have to tell it to shut up, she did that to save us, following the damn plan they wouldn't mind telling me.

"What do you mean?" I ask, totally dumbfounded.

"Brainless, the mission, the mission in Two." Johanna grabs my shoulder and shakes me like doing that can really make things out of my head. That action just causes me a sharp pain through my temple.

"Mission in … Two? … No one… told me. Stop… shaking." I stutter.

"What?!" Johanna stops her shaking. She glares hard at me and quickly spit out a dirty word. She looks around and pulls my face closer.

"Brainless, I just saw Finnick off in a hovercraft bound for Two. Beetee, Haymitch, your cousin and even the filming crew also were there. They said there had been a group taking off before so we all assumed you were in that group because we didn't see you. But they never confirmed that. I don't know why but they left you out. What the hell are they planning?!"

I bite my lip. No matter how hard I try, nothing I've done is enough for them to let me know. I've had enough. I'm so full of their treatment.

BANG!

I pant, realize I've run to the provisional Command room. People working inside turn their head at me. Coin and Plutarch are talking at a corner of a big table.

"Why you didn't let me go to Two?" I growl at them.

"Oh, calm down Katniss." Plutarch begins.

"No! Don't tell me calm down." I cut him off. "I did what you tell me to do, I train as hard as I can, I became your Mockingjay. And what did I ask from you? I want to fight. Isn't that too selfish? Why don't you let me fight?"

"Don't get it wrong, Katniss. We really appreciate you devotion. This time, we didn't let you go just because we want a propo with the message of not only the Mockingjay but other Victors also stand in our side." Plutarch explains.

"Does that mean you don't need her anymore?" Johanna snorts behind me. I didn't realize her following me til then. Plutarch takes a quick glance at her and continues.

"And you can have more time to prepare for the Invasion."

"I doubt that. Maybe one day I wake up and the Capitol were already down and Snow was already killed." I snap.

"We don't need to report you all military plan, soldier Everdeen." Coin says coldly.

"I don't need to know all of them. But this mission, my friends… and my cousin took part in it. I have the right to know. And the Invasion, you can't leave me out." I glare at her.

"No one…" Plutarch is about to say but Coin stops him.

"We're considering whether you could take part in the Invasion. Because of your mental condition lately."

"What's wrong about it?" I spit. The Peeta card, she's pulling it out.

"Your private reason that we all know of can interrupt your ability of executing order and risk not only your life but all the progress."

"My reason, he has a name. He risked his life to save this District. But all of you, a whole district, all of your gratitude are not enough to try until we have a real proof of his … death. And now you want to stop me." The heat inside my head makes me dizzy. I stumble back to the doorway. My hatred toward that steel-like woman is too much for me to be in the same room with her. Fine, if they stop me, I will find my own way to go to the Capitol, sneaking, stealing a hovercraft and kidnapping a crew, whatever.

"Leave me a seat, then." Johanna says. Did I just say my thought out loud? She's grinning at me.

"They didn't and won't let me in missions. Injuries, lack of training. As if I need training at wielding an ax. Saying exactly, they hate me, hah." She grabs my arm, helping us to walk faster. She doesn't say the word but I know we both think of what we were in the Quell. Maybe we still can make it out.

"Why do you hate me?" I ask out of curiosity.

"Well, I hate you." She replies without delay. "I hate your tacky romantic drama and your defender-of-the-helpless act. The truth that it was not an act makes you more unbearable. I hate you because they tried to save your life, regardless others, including me. Feel free to say I was jealous."

"It's good to know the reasons. Then we do what we began in the Quell." I say.

She nods at me. An alliance.


	21. Chapter 21

**************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 21**

Plutarch finds me after an uncomfortable dinner because I had to explain to Gale's family and Annie why I'm still here. He simply tells me to prepare my best for the Invasion. And so does Johanna. We will certainly be count in. No further explanation. I pull him back.

"How can I know for sure this time?" I ask.

Plutarch, for the first time drops his cheerful face and looks at me with kind of serious eyes.

"People in the Command room today will make sure about that. But confronting her like that is not a good idea, Katniss." And he walks away.

That's it. What I said about Thirteen's gratitude toward Peeta must be the trigger. People who heard it put pressure on Coin's decision. But as Plutarch said, that still was a mess. I reach for the rope in my pocket as a vague worry comes to my mind. Coin is still a president. What will her do to me? What will her do to my family? Did I fail my promise with Prim?

Crack!

A sound startles me. I collect my mind and realize I was walking back to my family's old compartment, which was destroyed by the bombing. I'm about to turn my back when I hear voices, tiny voices behind a collapsed wall which used to divide my compartment with other rooms. People are supposed to be at dinner or their own compartments at this time and if guards were out there, there should be light instead of darkness like this. I take silent steps toward the wall and find a spot behind my old closet. I sit down and concentrate at the voices. Those are two familiar voices of the two people I should be careful around.

"Come on, for the last time, do you really think he will let me know that?" Rhosy impatiently says.

"If you know about the council, you should know about it, too." That was Coin saying.

"I told you, I know about the council by coincidence. That almost cost my life. Do you think he trusts me or likes me enough to let me know, you idiot?" I suppose the "he" in their conversation must be Snow.

"Watch your mouth!" I've never heard Coin losing her calmness. But somehow Rhosy annoys her enough. "He named you Rhosy and let you have this face." There a light slapping sound as if Coin has put her hand to her mouth.

What's in a name and a face? There's a long moment of silence. Then Rhosy laughs, she laughs for another long moment.

"I see, I see. I guess there's something between you and him and finally, I can make you say something to confirm it. What is it then?" Rhosy asks tormented while I try to digest the information. There's something between Coin and Snow! Isn't that why she didn't agree for me to kill Snow?! Of course she doesn't answer Rhosy. Rhosy continues anyway.

"I didn't know why he changed my face but now I can make a wild guess again. Not that he likes me, of course. He did it to have your attention, to know you are the person he thought you are. He did it to see whether you would react and kidnap me. And you did."

Then she laughs and laughs until a beeping noise cuts in.

"You have schedule, right? Go! Don't waste your time with me because I'm nothing more than bait. You can kill me right now if you want." Rhosy says. And I hear footsteps on the floor full of pieces of brick and curl up behind the closet, just in case. I peer through the closet's edge and see Rhosy disappearing at the corner of the hall and Coin in her halfway to the hall. Suddenly she stops and bends down to pick up something. I'm frightening. I didn't realize I dropped my rope. A piece of rope should do no harm if it wasn't tied in a strange way that normal people will never tie. She knows. Coin looks around and walks away but I'm sure that she knows. She knows I heard the story. I sit still for a good time then I run back to my compartment, hoping that if she calls me, I can come to her in time and pretend I didn't know anything. She doesn't call me that night.

But the next day, she sends me her warning by exceptionally selecting Prim in the medic team for the Invasion. When my little sister tells me and seems excitedly because she thinks that's the result of her good job at training, I use all my strength to make up a smile for her sake. I failed her. With her good nature, Prim simply wants to devote to take care of people so that she's just happy to have a chance to do that and doesn't realize that's my punishment. I push her to the front line of war. Her smile just gives me pain.

"Prim, you take a bath first." My mother says. I look at her and I can see worry in her eyes. She must see putting a thirteen years old girl in the front line is not a reward. We wait for Prim to go in the bathroom.

"Katniss?" My mother asks. I gulp, we both failed Prim in our own way.

"I'm sorry. That's my fault she was selected." I whisper and tell her about the mess I made in the Command. I leave out what I had heard at night, she doesn't need to know too much.

"Katniss." My mother caresses my hair. "You do what your heart tells you to do."

"Next time, I should do what my head tells me." I say bitterly.

"You can't help it, Katniss. If you didn't do that, you would always regret. About Prim…" My mother takes a glance at the bathroom's door. We can hear the sound of Prim singing lightly and the flowing water. "When we're in the Capitol, just do what you need to do, I will protect her, Katniss."

I look at her, surprising.

"Believe me Katniss. I will protect her." She squeezes my hand.

The woman, who I always think of as fragile and helpless one, who I denied her right to be my mother, suddenly gives me a steady feeling of being protected, being supported. She returns, my mother from my childhood before my father's death, she returns to me. I nod at her and give her my trust.


	22. Chapter 22

******************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 22**

After a few days, we receive newest propos from Two, some for launching and one for report. The Peasekeepers are still struggling. They have retreated to their underground stronghold appearing to be a mine deep down a mountain. The rebels have leaded several raids to the mine but they were defeated. Of course they were, this stronghold was established to replace District Thirteen after the Dark Days. It's not an easy target. With the reinforcement from Thirteen, the rebels held another raid and failed again. As Mockingjay or as "cousin" of Gale, I'm allowed to watch the report propo in which the lost part of the raid is uncut. Every time a rebel fell down, I feel my heart tightening. Please don't let anything happen to Gale, or Finnick, Haymitch, anyone I know, especially Gale. I have things unsaid. It wasn't until the last minute of the propo and I can see all of them retreat safely I finally let out a breath that I was holding.

"What will they do now, to take down that mine?" I turn to Plutarch.

"Don't worry. They have both brains and good shot." He says.

Right, Beetee and Gale are the brains with their trap, snare, Gale and Finnick are good fighters. They surely don't need me. I mutter a thank you and get out of the room. I turn back to my compartment because it's supposed to be my hunting time but without companion they don't let me, worrying about me running away to Two or do something stupid. In their mind, I'm hot head, do things without thinking and can't be trust, I guess.

I throw myself at the bed and create in mind the image of the mine. I put me at Gale's position. What will he do to take it down? Think of the mine not as a mine, but another familiar thing we used to face in the wood. A prey? No, a rabbit hole? No, rabbit isn't right to be used to describe the enemy. A wild dog den? That's it. A wild dog den. Too dangerous to get inside, too deep to attack from the outside, the only way will be flushing them out. I sat up on the bed, blocking out the thoughts. Because I saw him do it and it's uncomfortable imagining people suffering what will come to them. And my father's death, every victims of mining accident who came to our house, they all rush back in my mind. But Gale will do it, he will put his deadly traps to that mine. I can see his answer if I ask him why he had to do that. Because they blew up our District. Because some of them brought terror and left scars in Madge's life. Those will surely be his answers.

"Katniss, what's wrong with you?" Madge asks while we're eating the dinner together. "You're distracted."

"Madge, what did you think when you saw me …killing people on the television?" I ask.

"Why do you ask, Katniss? I will never think of you as a murderer, if that's what you're worry. It's not like you enjoyed killing. You did that to survive."

"I did feel right when I kill the boy from One. I want to revenge for Rue." I solemnly say.

"And now you feel miserable, don't you? Katniss, you have one-track mind. You did what you had to do. When you did it, your mind suppressed your feeling but you're definitely not proud of it. That makes you different with a cold-blood murderer. And people who know you will never think of you as one."

"When you're with me after the Game can you really forget that I killed people?"

"Not really but when I remember that fact, I remind myself you did what they made you do, and you're the one who feels worst about that, and how happy I was when I knew you're coming back and that we're friends. Then it feels fine to be with you again." She puts her hand on mine and we come back to our intimate silence.

I replace me with Gale and think of what Madge said again and again. Gale is as same as me, has one-track mind. He has done everything, cruel things in order to take down the Capitol. One day those things will come back to haunt him and he will feel worst about that. I know I should let it go, shouldn't put Gale beside the image of collapsing mine in Two, frightened people running out of the only train can get out of the mine which I see in the propo a week later. But I can't. So when they come back to Thirteen and he finds and hugs me, I feel a hesitance to hug him back. I'm scared of his fire.

The days after that are quiet, like the quiet before a storm. I stay out of Coin's way, suppressing the urge of telling someone about what I know or confronting her. I train, help Johanna train, hunt with Gale, let Prim practice with my body. Just usual things. And having nightmares, another usual thing. I dream of the mine in Two, wailing sirens and people coming out of it all have the face of Cato. A part of me is happy as if my nightmares will reduce the misery Gale will feel someday.

Finally, one day, Finnick finds and tells me the Invasion will start after three days. He looks pale.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I just made the last propo. It will cause chaos in the Capitol, make it easier for the Invasion." He shakes his head lightly. What's the propo about, it's surely not about happy things.

"Are you okay?" I don't really know what to say.

"Yes, I will be. I have Annie." Finnick smiles lightly. Just her name can make him feel better, I guess. Then next morning, I watch his propo telling how the Capitol prostituted Victors and in several nights serving important people of Capitol, Finnick knows a lot of secrets about the dirtiness of politicians, about how Snow rose to power by killing a lot of people. The information certainly will cause protest against Snow inside the Capitol. The fact doesn't surprise me because Rhosy told me, though she didn't have specific names like Finnick and of course, there's nothing about the link between Snow and the president of Thirteen. But the propo makes my heart hurt for Finnick and Annie. He had to do that, becoming a toy for Capitol people, put on the mask of a flirty man, all for Annie's sake. I look for them in the crowd of diner room and see Annie put her slender arm around his shoulder protectively. He's her protector and she's his, there's nothing can deny it.


	23. Part 3: The Invasion - Chapter 23

**********************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 23**

Until the morning of our shipping out, I'm informed which squad I'm in. I walk in to the provisional Command room and find familiar faces. Gale, Finnick, Johanna, Boggs and five soldiers I have seen several times in training. Jackson, a middle-aged woman who looks kind of sluggish but can hit things people can't even see without a scope. Farsighted, she says. There's a pair of sisters in their twenties named Leeg, who are so similar in uniform, I can't tell them apart until I notice one of them has weird yellow flecks in her eyes so I name her Leeg 1 and other Leeg 2. Two older guys, Mitchell and Homes, never say much but can shoot the dust off your boots at fifty yards. All are good shooter. Plutarch waits for us to greet each other then announces.

"Ten of you were selected as Squad Four-Five-One. You will be shipped out privately after an hour." Why the rush and why privately, I really want to ask but before I can Plutarch continues by giving Boggs a strange device.

"Here is your Holo, Soldier Boggs."

"What's that?" I ask.

"That is a mini version of this." Plutarch smiles proudly and hits a button on the control table next to him. A holographic image of a block of the Capitol projects into the air. "This is the result of our intelligent system over years. Each light is called a pod. It represents a different obstacle, the nature of which could be anything from a bomb to a band of mutts. Make no mistake, whatever it contains is designed to either trap or kill you. Some have been in place since the Dark Days, others developed over the years. Well, I created a fair number myself. This is the most recent information we had before we got out of Capitol. Surely, there will be new pods waiting for you."

I'm paralyzed with the image. It's so familiar. Indistinctly, I turn to Finnick and Johanna. A cocky smile appears on Johanna's face.

"Welcome to the arena of Seventy-sixth Hunger Games!" She says and we both laugh.

"I hope more than one will make it out alive." Plutarch says and turns off the holographic. "Now, you're dismissed to prepare and bid farewell."

We nod and get out of the room.

"Katniss!" Plutarch calls me.

"What?" I motion for Gale to go ahead.

"Katniss, I like you and things might come out ugly. Now, go." He says quickly and pushes me out.

As a former Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee surely prefers things come out fit with public's taste. And people still look at me as their Mockingjay. If he says things might come out ugly, surely that result will not be on my side. I wonder what Coin prepares for me.

I put on my Mockingjay uniform, put Peeta's pearl in the breast pocket._ I'm coming for you. _I run to the kitchen just to give Mrs Mellark a handshake, then to Madge's room but she's not there. I go to the hospital to say good-bye to my family. They will be shipped out with medic teams at night. Prim hugs me tightly just like before my first Game but she doesn't cry anymore.

"Be careful, Katniss." She whispers. I really want to have a jabberjay right now to record my sister's sweet voice and bring it with me. I hug her back, while give my mother a look. My mother nods.

"You, too, little duck." I bury my face in her golden hair before let her go.

When I get to the port, my squad is already there.

"Where's Gale?" I look around and ask Johanna. She points her thumb to the corner.

"Saying goodbye to his girl overthere."

His girl? I peek through her shoulder and see Madge standing with him. When they recognize me looking, they quickly drop their conversation. Gale goes to check his weapon with Beetee and Madge comes to me.

"I'm sorry. I just want to say goodbye to him." She says. "And you."

"Madge, it's not like I own him. Stop saying sorry." I want to say more but I can't put words together. How I feel it's alright when they're together, I can't explain it. And my time runs out. Boggs is calling me.

"Good luck, Katniss." Madge says.

"Thank you. You take care of yourself." I reply and run to the hovercraft.

When my squad all settle down in the hovercraft and it starts taking off, I finally realize there's one person sitting in the dark corner.

"Rhosy!" I burst out and feel Gale startling beside me. She waits for the hovercraft is already out of the port to walk to the center of the squad. She turns on a small device in her palm and we hear the voice of Coin.

"Squad Four-Five-One, you have been selected for a special mission. Assassinate President Snow. You will act alone and not interact with other squads. We're looking for your best news."

The mission explains the presence of Rhosy in our squad. We need her to reach to Snow. I look at Rhosy and she's looked bored. Other seems excited at the mission. But somehow I feel my stomach churning. What changed Coin's mind to give me permission to kill Snow? Is there something fishy in this mission?

"Don't worry, Katniss. I have your back." Gale whispers. He must feel my body tense and says that thinking about Rhosy. That's a possibility. Coin uses Rhosy's personal hatred toward me and sends her in my squad. Might not be that simple. But I nod at Gale anyway.

The hovercraft drops us to One and then a truck takes us through the woods and we walk the rest from the suburb to a destroyed part in the Capitol. The rebel's air force couldn't do much damage out of this area because Capitol's air defense has been activated. On the contrary, Capitol's air force has been disabled or destroyed after the rebel took over Two. The fight will be on the ground.

We spend a whole day to rest before advancing to the Capitol. The night of the next day while we're reaching to our planned next camping spot, Legg 2 was killed right away by a mislabeled pod, which instead of unleash a swarm of muttation gnats shot out a sunburst of metal darts and then Mitchell was blown up by another mislabeled pod, which was supposed to release poison gas. It wasn't until Homes activated another mislabeled pod, which should blast fire as we were told by the Holo, instead, it gulped him in a mysterious cloud, which made him visible in the darkness and he received a shot from a sniper, I realize Coin didn't use Rhosy to kill me. She put Rhosy in our squad to kill both of us, all of us. The Holo is faked.


	24. Chapter 24

**************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 24**

"Retreat! Retreat!" Boggs orders. Even though we're equipped with night vision glasses but it's not likely helping fight off a sniper, especially when some of us got caught in the cloud and still be radiant in the darkness. I quickly push Rhosy to the door of the nearest building, then join the others shooting randomly into the darkness why Finnick and Johanna tries to pull Homes to safe place.

"Argh!" Leeg 1 screams shortly and holds her visible arm.

"From the left, from the left!" Jackson – the farsighted shooter shouts. We immediately concentrate our shooting directions. That buys us enough time to enter the building. It's a fashion center. I can see the left of those Capitol weird clothes everywhere. The bomb of rebel's air force destroyed a corner of it and the fire burnt down the cloth. We retreat to the store and slump down to piles of clothes. We breathe heavily in the dim light. Jackson checks on Homes. He's not dead yet but won't last long. His blood has made a radiant trail on our way. No one says anything while she's bandaging the wounded arm of Leeg 1.

Finally Johanna explodes. "What the hell was that? Three mislabeled pod in a day." I bite my lips. If I tell them Coin wanted to kill me, I will have to spill out her secret. I have no intention to do that in case any of us make it out alive.

"She wants to kill us." Boggs say after a while. I'm surprised when he said "us". "President Coin wants to kill us. That's why she gave us a fake Holo."

"But why?" Gale exclaims.

"I can only guess this much. When this war ends, a new leader will be chosen. And you will become threat to her position." Boggs says.

"Come on, we're not going to be the leader." I roll my eyes.

"You're not but all of you are Victors and you are Mockingjay, Katniss. Your choice will take influence on people." Boggs points at Finnick, Johanna and me then turns to the rest. "And if the information about the death of anyone of us in the mission of assassinating Snow gets to our comrades, it will surely add fire to the rebellion. We are more useful for her death than alive." He doesn't need to point out the reason for Rhosy Snow.

We fall back to silent again, digesting what he said.

"What are we gonna do now?" Jackson asks. "Come back?"

"I won't. If I have to die, at least I want to pull Snow down with me." I grunt. In the dim light, I see Johanna nodding her head.

"We can't come back. She can sentence us as defectors." Says Boggs. "We can go forward or hide. Just that." She doesn't leave us other ways around, does she? The best we can do is advance.

"But there're traps everywhere." Leeg 1 says. Boggs looks at the Holo on his palm for a while then says.

"I think the Holo still be useful. At least, positions of pods were right. We just have to be more careful with what will come out of them."

"We have another problem beside those pods." Gale says while looking outside through a small window. "The sniper might already report us. We will be surrounded if we linger here. Let's move."

We look at each other and then to Homes. We're stuck like a prey in a trap. How can we outrun the enemy with our body still be so easily spotted and with a dying ones? It's no use even if we take down the sniper.

"Can I speak?" Rhosy asks from her corner. Her voice causes a shudder through everybody. This was the first time she opens her mouth since the moment she brings in the hovercraft the order of Coin, or bluntly, our death sentence.

"Okay." Boggs says shortly.

"We go underground. Make a bomb. He will be the trigger." She points at Homes. That's it, she is the only one who's blunt enough to tell people to die. People object constantly.

"You can blame it on me all you want. Just don't want to die now." Rhosy mumbles.

"No one wants. Homes, too." I snap. "How can you just tell people to die?"

"That's the different between us. You are the noble Mockingjay, I'm Snow's granddaughter. You all know what has to be done but you can't say it out loud. I volunteer to be blamed. What else can you do? Hugging each other and die? This is not your Games. There is no sponsor to send you medicine to save him." She growls back.

I spring up and ready to plunge at her but Homes is the one who quiets us down with his choking laugh.

"She's right… I'd like to do that… more useful that way… take down some bastards…" He mutters weakly. Am I angry because deep down I know she's right, too? She's right about our powerless situation and how arrogant I am when I think I can find a way to keep people alive out of this big arena. And when Boggs stands up and starts saying, things were settled.

"People, follow me to the basement. Gale, you stay and prepare the bomb. Give your luggage to Finnick. You will have fifteen minutes before I leave you."

"No!" I shout. "I won't leave him behind."

"He's not the one who's left behind. Homes is." Jackson snorts.

"Just no. I will stay with him." I repeat stubbornly.

"Katniss, come here." Gale calls me while gluing his eyes at the window. I walk toward him, guessing what he wants to show me outside. The scene of Peacekeepers surrounding us? I won't leave him behind, whatever it is.

So sudden, he pulls me in his arms and kisses me. His embrace is so strong, so passionate that it makes me feel small and weak. I don't know how to return. Then…

Crack!

I open my eyes. His grey eyes almost turn silver in the light from the window.

"Gale!" I gasp. He tricked me. Kissing me then put cuffs on me.

"Don't worry, I will be there." He whispers then turns me around. "There you go. Take her."

Johanna drags me with her while whispering.

"Now, don't struggle. You know better than that."

Yes, I know better not struggling but it's still hurt like hell just thinking I leave Gale here. Don't know if I can reach Peeta, don't know if my mother and Prim can make it, and now don't know if I can see Gale again. I glue my eyes at his shadow. This will be the longest fifteen minutes of my life.


	25. Chapter 25

******************************************************************************I'm sorry for the cliff hanger. I really want to finish it asap but life isn't a dream. I hope someone still want to read it. Thank you all. :D**

******************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 25**

Through the ventilation shaft, we crawl and crawl. The tube is so small that I can barely raise my head and the only thing keeps me moving in the right way is Johanna's heels right before me. After a while I start hearing the noise coming from other tubes. The noise of motors, of heavy steps of soldiers. They're here. Can Gale make it in time? I really want to crawl back and wait for Gale but Finnick pushes me forward. Finally the tube opens to a wider tunnel. Jackson, under Boggs's instruction, leads us running through three intersect then we start climbing up and continue crawling in another ventilation tube. Finally when I can creep out of the tube, this time behind a closet in a deserted house, I hear the explosion. The fire lights up the street two or three blocks away from the house. An image flashes through my mind. Homes sits between the piles of clothes, his hand on the trigger. The Peacekeepers follow his blood trail and reach the storage room. Their eyes widen at Homes and the trigger. They raise their guns but it's too late, Homes gives them a smirk and a KABOOMMM.

We stand in the dark, gaze at the light of fire outside the window. When I remember we didn't have time to say goodbye or thank you to Homes, I raise my three finger, other people one after another do the same thing. For Homes and also for Leeg 2 and Mitchell, people we lost in just a day.

A scratching sound from the shaft startles us.

"Gale!" I plunge back at the shaft's door and call desperately.

"Almost there!" He says, maybe from the wider tube. Right after his head pops out of the shaft, my anger rises. I grasp his collar and pull half of him out of the shaft.

"If you trick me again like that, I will bite off your tongue." My voice breaks. "Damn you!"

"What's wrong?" Boggs asks from the shaft. I'm blocking the way. I quickly release Gale and walk to the sofa. He gets out of the shaft and sits down beside me. He grabs my hand. People settle down around the room and sink in their own thoughts. How long can the fire delay the searching of Peacekeepers? How many of us will survive until the next night?

Irony enough, a few minutes passes and a noise of empty stomach pulls us out of silence. Boggs rises up and claps his hands lightly.

"Alright, first thing first. We need to eat and rest."

We're about to open our pack to get our dried food when Finnick flips his fingers.

"Oh right, don't eat. Wait for me a little. I think I can help saving our dried food."

A question of how almost leaves my mouth. His client's house, of course. Sure enough, after a while of searching in another room, he calls for Gale then they bring back pile of cans and boxes.

"They used to hide wine or drug, limited goods. Before the war." Finnick says and passes the cans around.

"They must have to evacuate hastily and couldn't bring these." Leeg 1 says vaguely.

"Thank to that, we can have a feast before we jump a cliff with their president." Johanna says and harshly opens the first can. We eat and sometimes adding a small talk. The food is good and full stomachs light up the atmosphere a little. We eat a box of cookies for dessert then the exhaustion keeps up with us. Yawning runs around the team.

"I think the explosion and the fire would cover our track so at least we can rest here for tonight. Take turn on guarding, clear?" Boggs says.

We move the mattress from the bedroom to the room where we can look out the window and retreat to the shaft quickly. The first on guard is Jackson. I lie down next to Gale, face to face with him.

"Promise me, Gale." I whisper. "We will try to go as far as we can. And if… I'm captured and can't reach to my nightlock pill, you will finish me off."

"Promise. You do the same for me, Katniss."

I nod then turn to face the ceiling. Light from the windows makes Jackson's shadow flickering on the strange pink flower pattern of the ceiling. _We have to do it by our own hands for the intimacy._ The traditional of Ten, a reasonable traditional promise, now I understand it clearer. But not yet, that's the worst case. I want to survive and I have to concentrate at surviving. Survival, my main purpose over time. Through my father's death, through the game and through this war.

"Gale?"

"Hmm?"

"In the wood you said you knew what my choice was." I hesitate. I figure it out, too and I feel… awful.

"Yes, I know how you would choose." Gale says.

"I will choose whoever I think I can't survive without, isn't it your answer?" I ask.

Survival, it's all about survival. Whatever I say, whatever I do. I didn't know I was that cold and calculating, pure selfish like that. No passion, no emotion, no love can be stronger motive for me than survival. And in the end, I might consider between a hunter and a baker, who will extend my longevity the most, to be my mate. It's hurt when I said it and Gale didn't deny. He couldn't because it's true, he knows me and I know that, but I still wish he would say something different.

"And I know right now to go through this, you need both of our survivals so don't worry, I won't give up my life easily. Get some sleep, Catnip." Gale whispers. He lays his large hand on my arm. I put my other hand on my breast pocket, where I hide my pearl. Gale's right about me again. One person is waiting for me ahead, the other is supporting behind me, yes, I need both of them with me to get out of this I-hope-final Hunger Games. It's not the time to think about a choice in future which might not come if I'm distracted now.


	26. Chapter 26

**********************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 26**

I wake up at midnight. It's not time for my turn yet but I have a nightmare. Boggs sits by the window. The fire has been weakened and the light shining through the window is from the moon. He's looking at something and when I crawl closer, I realize that's his son's photo.

"Can't sleep?" He says without looking at me. I come to sit under the window.

"Nightmare. I can guard straight till the morning." I say.

"That's not good. I want my team at their best performance. In the piles of food, there're some chocolate bars. Eat it, it's good for your head and go back to sleep." Boggs waves his hand impatiently. "That's an order." He adds.

I find the chocolate bar and bring it over to offer him half of it. It brings back memory of the first time I tasted the bitterness and sweetness of chocolate on the train to the Capitol with Peeta. I glance over at Boggs. He's back with looking at the picture.

"I thought you're close to Coin. Maybe if you come back… you and the others still have a chance." I say.

"I argued with her after coming back from Two about why she left you out." Boggs puts the picture into his pocket and starts eating the chocolate. "I won't leave you here Soldier Everdeen."

"Why? You don't owe me anything." I'm surprised and feeling guilty at the same time. Look at what his action got him into.

"It's the right thing to do. You trained hard, you fought hard, you're deserved to be supported. If you want a more private reason, I can say because my son loves your show with the cat." He shrugs his shoulders. "Now, finish that and back to sleep. You still have one and half an hour until your turn."

I throw the last piece of chocolate into my mouth. Bitter, the taste of chocolate or the taste of owing. There's one more person who supports me, whom I'm in debt with and not yet know if I can pay back.

"Uhm… then … good night." I whisper awkwardly and about to turn back to my spot when he says.

"You hate owing, right? But there's not always a chance to pay back. I'm happy to help you so that you can help other people, Soldier Everdeen. That's what I want you to pay me for my support, am I clear?"

And now I feel the sweetness of chocolate lingering inside my mouth. I nod and Boggs waves his hand to dismiss me again.

The morning comes pretty quiet. That makes the whole squad uneasy. Out the street, there're noises of motors but not much. They don't believe the trespassers all die in the explosion, do they? We have breakfast with the canned food again and pack the lightest ones under a tense atmosphere. Helping to break our nerve, the television suddenly comes back to life without anyone coming near it, emitting a high-pitched beeping sound, which I'm sure from the street they still can hear it. Jackson and Leeg 1 jump to the window while I and Gale run to the shaft's doorway.

"Wait, the sounds… they also come from the street." Jackson says, confusing.

"Right, it's an emergency broadcast. Every Capitol television is automatically activated for it." Rhosy says from her corner. "Look like the real Invasion began. And from a total different direction with us."

"That explains the quiet around here even after such an explosion." Finnick says.

Boggs raises his hand, motions for Jackson stay at her spot. The others turn to the television. There are images of activated pods with bombs, mutts, poison gas. The Peacekeepers are building a wall by destroying houses, pulling cars and furniture to the street. The rebels are pinned down or those are what the Capitol wants to show its people to keep calm. The reporter announces names of street, names of building, danger areas for civilians evacuating. She doesn't forget to imply this chaos was just temporary and the enforcement would arrive soon and the rebels would be defeated. Then the screen fades back to a glow.

"Enforcement?" Gale turns to Boggs.

"They're bluffing. Even if they made a deal with outsiders, they wouldn't arrive that soon." Boggs shakes his head. "And the rebels would already take over the Capitol. We hesitate at using missiles with the Capitol because we want it intact but against outsiders, that's okay. They won't be a fool to fight against us when the Capitol's already defeated."

"And soon enough Coin will add fire to the rebels by announcing our sacrifice. The enforcement won't have enough time." Johanna snorts.

We all have eyes on her for a moment then Boggs stands up with his back pack.

"Okay, let's move. They won't have enough men in this area to stop us anymore."

"Underground?" Jaskson asks.

"Yes, there's less pods underground."

We return the mattress to where they were, tidy the room a little bit and creep in the shaft again. The walk is long and quiet. We take breaks when our eyes tired of the weak light of our flash light.

"Where are we now?" Rhosy asks Boggs at our third break.

"Why do you ask?" He observes her and asks back.

"Because if we reach the center of the city, there will be a system of underground laboratories. I can find the way to President's mansion." She says.

"How can we believe that you won't lead us right into his hand?" Gale says harshly.

"Oh, there's no way because I can't change my parents or my blood. But what else can you do? Wander around here until the mislabeled pods finish you?" She fights back. Some of the others, including me, jump to our feet in anger.

"Stop!" Boggs cuts it off. "We haven't made it far from where we were. I led you the longer way to avoid pods. I will consider your offer later, Miss Rhosy."

I glare at her then sit down to finish my cookies. We manage to go through our third day at the Capitol without losing anyone. At the end of the day we sneak in to another house and get food and rest. The television next day doesn't mention about the explosion we caused, not even one simple line runs across the screen. That makes us more worry than knowing we're chased after. They won't take this thing lightly, I'm sure of that.

"Should we change our route?" Jackson discusses with Boggs before our departure. "Or wait a little."

"Even if they found out about the ventilation, they couldn't know where we could go up and they couldn't close all the shafts, either. Underground is still our best shot. And when we can go further inside the city, number of pods will reduce then we will change the route." Boggs says.

We continue our travel in the dark tube.

"Katniss! Do you… smell something?" Finnick suddenly stops before me. The squad stops and looks around. I take some deep inhales. It's so vague but he's right, the air feels different.

"The air feels heavier." Leeg 1 says.

"Yes, and it has a light smell of metal." Finnick turns to Boggs.

"Up! Now!" He orders shortly then leads us to the nearest smaller shaft. The strange becomes more and more vivid. I take another deep inhale and hold my breath. We arrive at the kitchen of a house. It's midday. Under the daylight, we see the air coming from the shaft changing its color. Finnick is the last one get out of the shaft. He staggers. I stand up and offer him my hand. Before I have time to call out his name, I feel the air going out of my lungs when he hurls me down to the floor.


	27. Chapter 27

**************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 27**

I don't know whether the ceiling of this kitchen is actually decorated with stars but I'm seeing stars dancing around before my eyes. And there is a chaos of sound around me. Finnick's shouting at my face.

"It's because of you. I'm just married, damn it."

"Finnick! Stop it, Finnick!" Johanna shouts from somewhere.

"Katniss!" That's Gale.

"I told you changing the route. See! See!" Jackson grumbles.

"And run into those pods? I'm the leader here so shut up." Even Boggs?

"No, it's because of her." Leeg 1 shouts and some chairs are pushed around.

What's going on? Finnick is yanked back, out of me. I gasp, hungrily sipping the air into my lungs. Finnick is struggling with Gale and Johanna.

"What are you thinking, Odair?" Gale growls.

"It doesn't concern you." Finnick yells back. I feel angry.

"Even if it's not for me, Coin still wants to kill you because you're Victor." I snap back.

"Shut up, brainless. Cut it off, Finnick. What's wrong with you people?" Johanna jumps in.

"It's the air." Rhosy yells out from Leeg 1's grip. They're struggling next to the dining table.

"Shut up!" Leeg 1 tightens her grip around Rhosy's wrist, trying to cuff her to the table.

I throw a look at Johanna. Right, that strange air, it even changed its color. We totally forgot about it. She runs to the shaft, closes it off while I jump to the basin, turn the faucet for water run freely. Using a spoon, I let water splashing toward Finnick and Gale still shouting and struggling with each other. Water is the only thing I can think of that can cool down their heads right now. Johanna uses a large bowl and doesn't hesitate, splashing water at Boggs, Jackson and Leeg 1. The fighting stops for a moment then they all growl at two of us.

"What was that for?"

Johanna jumps up the table with another bowl of water, ready to splash it.

"All of you, shut up. You know better than fighting each other right now, do you? Or all of you are just stupid? That was the air, the strange air in the tube. They are poison gas. Breath, push it out! Pull yourself together!" She says loudly.

It costs us a while to finally purify our lungs. Shaming looks and murmuring apologies are given around the team. I open the cuff for Rhosy.

"That gas triggered our nerves." She says while rubbing her wrist. "Release our suppressed anger." They're trying to make us kill off each other inside the tube. Luckily, we still had our mind clear enough to not to pull out our weapons.

"Why three of you were not affected?" Boggs asks.

"Maybe because when she and I were knocked out, the air got out of our lungs sooner than others." Rhosy shrugs.

"And Johanna always says whatever she thinks out loud." I add. Johanna laughs at what I said. Her laughing is rough as always. This time it gives others a little of her strength, makes us at least smirk along with her.

"What's now?" I ask Boggs. We've caused a lot of noises.

"The street's still clear." Jackson walks to the window and announces.

"Remember, they don't have enough men to search through the whole system of tube and shaft. If they knew where we were, they would use a deadly poison gas, not this kind of gas. Streets are still more dangerous than the tube." Gale reasons.

"What if they activate the pods down there?" Leeg 1 asks.

"No, not yet. They don't know if the rebels would attack from this direction. They have to keep those pods in case. I think that sniper knew us as a small group. They might think we're reconnaissance." Boggs presses his fingers on his temple, thinking hard at choosing which way for us.

"Let's go. If we're quickly enough, we might reach safer streets today then we will back to up ground." Finally he stands up and orders. "Weapon ready. Mask ready. Katniss, Jackson, come here."

She and I exchange a confusing look then walk to him. Boggs unties the Holo and types in a command, pressing his thumb to the screen for print recognition, speaking a string of letters and numbers in response to a prompt. A green shaft of light bursts out of the Holo and illuminates his face. He says, "Unfit for command. Transfer of prime security clearance to Squad Four-Five-One Soldier Katniss Everdeen." Then he turns the Holo toward my face. "Say your name."

"Katniss Everdeen!" I say. He shoves it into my hand then turns to Jackson.

"Jackson, when we reach the big tube, you and she will take the lead, I will take the last. Go straight to the city center. If you meet any pods, shoot it. You're farsighted shooter, right. Help her. Push her as far as you can."

"What's about you?" I cut in. I don't like the way he talks. Boggs opens his mouth when a rustling sound interrupts him.

"What is it?" Leeg 1 looks around.

The next minute is strange. I see a green light flash through her face, her yellow flecks are vivid. No one says anything but Leeg 1 automatically opens the shaft, as if she's controlled, as if she's asked to do that. By death. I raise my hand toward her but nothing can be faster than a giant snake-like mutt which launches from the shaft and bites off her head.

Johanna is the first one out of the paralyze moment. She swings her special ax, which will only spread its blade when she pushes a button so she can bring it around like a normal stick, at the mutt. The ax's blade recoils against the mutt's golden skin. It releases Leeg 1's body and spits at Johanna. She jumps back just in time. Finnick tries his trident but it just helps distracting the mutt, not hurting it. I pull out my normal arrow and shoot at its eyes. It's work. The mutt thrashes around in pain and anger, crushes the furniture.

"Katniss!" Gale screams. Why? I catch a glance of a golden shadow plunging at my left side. There's another mutt. A body slams at me, knocks me back.

"Get out! Get out!" Jackson yells right behind me then I feel her pulling me. I blink several times to stop the star-dancing in my eyes.

"NOO!" My voice's breaking.

Boggs is standing before me. He has both his hands inside the second mutt's mouth, struggling with its strong jaw. His belt, where he kept his grenades, is empty. Homes, Boggs will be like Homes.

"OUT!" He roars his last order.

Across the kitchen, Finnick and Johanna and Rhosy run out of the room through a door. Gale and Jackson pull me to another door and shut it.

The explosion blows up the door, throws into the hall right before my feet a mixture of blood and yellow scale and pieces of wood.

"Get out of here!" Jackson says dryly. She's the command now. My body responds to her order why inside I still whimper quietly. No, no, how can I pay him back this debt? How can I?


	28. Chapter 28

******************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 28**

We meet the others down stair and quickly run out of the house. We will be spot in just a minute and underground is no longer a choice.

"Turn on the Holo." Jackson tells me when we all sneak in a small alley.

"I don't know how." I admit. Why did Boggs pass it to me, not her? Jackson must wonder the same thing. She scowls then snatches the Holo from me and taps in a command. An intersection comes up.

"Follow me." She grunts.

We run in a line after her. The alley ends behind a yard of a compartment with high wood fence. Johanna quickly takes down a bar, enough for us pass through. We run around the compartment and a long a road, finally meet the intersection. Jackson stops and checks the Holo. Her face shows the struggling inside her.

"What's wrong?" Finnick asks from the end of the line.

"There're cameras around here. And also a pod over there, mislabeled or not." She says.

"What's its label?" I ask her.

"Poison gas." She looks at me and we both gulp. Can we believe the Holo this time? Did they have enough time at home to change all the labels? I hear the growls becoming nearer and nearer behind us. They released mutts into this area. Don't want to go by themselves and meet their own pods.

"There's no other way." I say. Jackson nods, agrees with me.

"Put on your mask. I will activate the pod. If it's poison gas, ready to follow me."

She puts on her own mask, raises her own gun and shoots. Across the intersection, there's a loud snap as the pod triggers. It spits out a column of thick gray smoke. I never thought I would feel such a relief in my life when I see this deadly smoke. The smoke quickly spreads over the street, engulfs us, covers us from the cameras, I hope also from the mutts. Jackson is a blur shadow before me. We walk carefully until the smoke becomes thinner then start running again. The colorful walls of buildings, unnatural colors of decorating flowers and trees of this street Capitol become eerie with sounds of our running steps, panting breaths and growling of the mutts chasing after us. We only stop for Jackson shooting at the pods ahead our way. Just one of them is mislabeled, that's more than enough. A flock of wolf mutts jumps out around us.

"Jackson!" I push her and we roll under the large shadow of a mutt. It rolls to a statue on the lawn of a house and immediately killed by Finnick's trident.

I just have enough time to turn upward and pull out one arrow when the second mutt jumps on top of me. The arrow thrusts into its stomach the same time the mutt's claws thrust into my shoulder.

"ARGHHH!" I scream.

Jackson draws her knife into the mutt's neck. It draws it last breath, falls on top of me, stink saliva falls down to my mask, my neck. I kick it madly but it's too heavy. No, I don't want to suffocate under a dead mutt. Jackson can't help me when another mutt is dragging her foot, pulling her out of me.

"Gale!" I choke out his name. No, no, he's fighting with another mutt, too far to hear me. They're all struggling. And soon the mutts after us will arrive. No, no.

Suddenly, the block of meat over me moves a little.

"I count to three… One, two… THREE!" Rhosy slams her slender body to one side of the mutt while I kick it desperately. It rolls out of me. I get up to my feet, still too tremble to shoot. I draw my own knife and plunge to the mutt attacking Jackson, kill it off. Finnick yells something. I look up and terrified of seeing at the end of the street, a herd of monkey-like but so much bigger mutts have come up with us.

"Your explosive arrow!" Jackson grumbles, holding her bleeding arm.

"It's too far." I say but still pull the arrow out. Jackson inches her body closer to see from the same position with me. She will be my scope.

"A little to the left. Higher. No, not that high. Shoot!"

My shoulder hurts so my arrow doesn't arrive to the exact position like we want. It just rips up the road, explodes some mutts. But immediately the rest of them decide to dig in the pile of blood and meat right before them. It's just gross.

"Come on!" I shake my head then help Jackson to her feet. Her right foot and arm are bleeding badly. Rhosy catches one of her side.

"I will take her. Help the others." She says and pushes me away. I don't have time to wonder, just nod at her then run off to help Gale.

When Johanna kills off the last wolf mutts, the monkey mutts also finish their meal and turn their attention back to us.

"Run, run! Turn left over there we will reach the bridge." Jackson pants heavily, dragging her injured foot with Rhosy's help.

I shoot another explosive arrow to the mutts, hoping it will slow down them with a new meal. It seems like they're full. The river and the bridge appear before us right when we take the turn. Jackson looks around, checks the Holo then points out a lone tower on the river bank.

"That tower controls the bridge. Lift it up for ships passing." She says.

We stop, digest the information. Damn, whoever runs to the tower won't have chance to cross the bridge. Johanna bursts out laughing.

"No, Johanna!" Finnick and I say at the same time. He grabs her arm.

"What?! Who can do it better than me?" No one waits for her back home, she means. She snatches away. "Come back to Annie. And you, brainless, shoot straight."

She pushes me. But she's my ally, she became one of my family. I can't leave her.

"Come on! Don't waste her live." Finnick says through his grinding teeth and pulls my arm. Damn! Damn! I mutter and use all my strength to make my feet move. Boggs, Johanna, all of my fallen squad members. I will come back, I have to come back to make her pay for them. Alma Coin, you will have to pay.


	29. Chapter 29

**********************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 29**

_Katniss, you have to run. Katniss, you have to help Jackson bandage her wounds. Katniss, you have to put something on your own injury. Katniss, count your arrow. _

_One, two, three…_

_Katniss._ A hand touches my arm gently.

I look up from my arrows. Gale's face floats before my eyes. I slowly use my hands to keep it steady. Gale lets me do this without complain.

"Yes?" Finally I can answer him.

"Katniss, something's wrong with her." Gale whispers.

I realize all the orders before coming from Gale. He has pushed me ahead when my mind went blank from tired of sadness, desperate and anger. I look around to catch a picture of where I am. It's already dark. We've arrived at another house. Slump in a dark corner is Finnick, I'm sure that he's weeping for Johanna, just like he once wept for Mags on the beach. Flat on her back, panting heavily is Jackson. I bandaged her, gave her painkiller I found in the first aid kit in the kitchen, but her leg was broken and I couldn't do anything. Gale taps my shoulder lightly and points out for me the last one. A trembling figure next to the sofa. Rhosy. I nod with him.

"Be careful. We don't know what's she gonna do." He says then walks back to the window, guarding for us.

I crawl to Rhosy. She did help the team and she did save me from suffocating under the mutt. However it's not easily for me to shake off her crazy laugh when she yelled at me she would remember how I kicked her. Okay, that's my fault.

"Rhosy?" I call.

She looks up. Her eyes reflect the dim light from the window, remind me of Buttercup's. They're nervous and not steady on my face. She bites her lips. Now I remember.

"When is the last time you took your pills?" I grab her shoulder.

"I don't know…I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She mumbles softly.

"Rhosy, calm down. You're not a drug tester any more. You don't have to sorry." I mutter quickly and keep her head for her locking her eyes with me. "Are you with me? Rhosy?"

"Kat…Katniss. Damn you… You arrogant…You never believe me…" Her voice breaks. She's actually crying. "I will make you… remember me."

I gulp. You just came back from the edge of breaking down, you have to stay here. I remind myself.

"Okay, I remember you. Just calm down." I try to sooth her. "Remember, remember, we're here to kill Snow. I need you to calm down."

"You don't need me… All of you… leave me alone." She sobs.

"What's wrong with her?" Finnick asks right beside me, startle me a little. His voice's hoarse. He clears his throat.

"She's out of her medicine." I answer.

"What kind of medicine?" He asks.

"I don't know. She needs them to calm down."

"Maybe sleeping pill might work." After a moment, Finnick says thoughtfully. "Or at least they will make her sleep."

"Good idea. I will go find them." I quickly run to the kitchen, scratch the pile of medicine under the flashlight. There are none. Maybe they keep them in the bedroom. I go up stair. Only one room has its door open. I peer in it first and see a round bed. The wall is painted with light purple while the bed in pink. Ugh, the taste of Capitol. I open the nightstand. There's milk powder, tissue, a lot of things I can't name and I sigh, a small bottle with the label written sleep syrup. I lift it up. The bottle is made in berry shape and in the lid carved a… mockingjay. I groan. A product follows my first Game. That's when I catch the sight of a shadow behind me. Instinctively I duck my head to one side. A slender but hard thing smashes my wounded shoulder.

"Argh!" I give out a short scream while quickly dodge around and grab the attacker, putting one of my hands to its mouth.

"Katniss!" Gale calls from down stair and I hear footsteps.

I struggle with the attacker. My arms are weaker than before because of the wound but the attacker doesn't seem like a strong one, either. A woman. I notice her soft and … wet, why, breast under my arm. Surprisingly, I feel a warm liquid falling on my bare feet. I push her down to the bed, still keeping my hand over her mouth.

"Katniss!" Gale rushes in, flashlight on one hand supporting the other with gun.

"Don't shoot, Gale, don't shoot!" I don't know why I said that. In another case I would be the one who shot her right when she attacked me. I have a mini gun on my belt and I didn't even pull it out. Maybe, just maybe it's because of what Boggs wanted me to do to pay him back.

"You're alright?" Gale glances at the woman then ask me without lower his gun.

"I'm alright." Now, under his flashlight I can see the weapon she used. A coat hanger. And she's dressing in her nightgown. Certainly she recognizes me. Her eyes are filled up with fright. No makeup, no wigs, she doesn't look like a normal Capitol woman.

"Katniss, we can't risk let her live." Gale says and steps closer.

The lower part of her nightgown and her legs are wet. Oh no, she doesn't look like one but she is…

"No, we can't kill her. She's pregnant and… about to give birth… right now." I snap at him out of frightening.

"What?" Gale asks in disbelief. Why now? Don't we have enough things to take care of?

"Shhh, we don't want to hurt you." I whisper to the woman. "Please don't scream. If you promise you won't scream, I will take off my hand. Okay?"

She nods, tears running down her temple. I slowly lift my hand on her mouth.

"Why you didn't evacuate?" I ask.

"My husband… he went to the city center to get an ambulance for me…" She whimpers.

"What? Her husband. Katniss, if you don't want to kill her, it's okay but we have to get out of here. Who know when her husband will come back." Gale says. I raise my hand to stop him.

"You need doctors? You never did it yourself?" I stammer.

"No one does… They say it's not good… it will make your waist look fat…"

I roll my eye. Stupid Capitol fashion.

"Okay, wait here for a moment. You have to stay still. Your water has broken so if you move around… I don't know what can happen to you and your child." I say. Honestly I don't know but she takes it as a threatening. Whatever. I pull Gale to the hallway.

"We can't leave her here." I say.

"Katniss, are you out of your mind? Jackson can't walk anymore, that girl is going crazy down there and the husband's coming back and you said we have to take care of her. What's for?" Gale grumbles. Right, his hatred toward the Capitol is much deeper than mine. It includes all the Capitol people, who watch children killing other for entertaining. I think of them as a herd of idiot but innocence pets, like my prep teams.

"Because we're not like them. I can kill a Peacekeeper who attacks me but not this harmless woman and her unborn child. If we leave her here, they might die." I argue. We lock eyes. Only the hurtful cry of the woman distracts us. Gale bites his lip and gives up.

"Fine. But… can you deliver?" He sighs.

Well, that's a different problem. I put my hand on his shoulder, deciding to joke a little while inside I really want to run away.

"May the odds be ever in my favor."


	30. Chapter 30

**************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 30**

I have Gale bring the woman down stair. I arrive before him, quickly give Rhosy, well, half the bottle of sleep syrup. It actually cools her down. She slowly closes her eyes and leans to me, falling into sleep. Finnick jumps at the same time as the woman hisses and shrieks his name when they see each other.

"Who is she, Gale?" He demands.

"A pregnant woman whom we will have to deliver her child right now." Gale says irritatedly.

"What?" Finnick chokes.

"Okay, it's my idea." I grunt while settling Rhosy down to the rug. I turn around. They all have eyes on me, even Jackson has lifted her head up.

"I just can't leave her." I say, feeling my face burn up. Finally it's Jackson who says something more matter of fact.

"You should let her walk around. Make things move faster. Let's get over it as quick as we can. Lucky to you, I've done this for my sister."

I release my tense body in relief. I was so afraid I have to do this alone. Gale puts the woman down and leads her walk toward Jackson.

"Okay, girl, sit down here. Hawthorne, boil water for me. Odair, find for me clean clothes. Everdeen, come here."

I help Jackson sit up and put some cushions behind the woman to get her into right position as Jackson instruct.

"Hold the flashlight for me." Jackson says. I move to sit next to her and raise the flashlight. Oh, not a good idea. I turn my head and swallow hard. Why did I ever think I could handle this alone? It's a whole new level if I compare it with Peeta's wound. Though I know it's not a wound but the scene still frightens me. And her whimper every now and then.

"Now now, turn your head back here and steady the light and you, stop crying, save your strength for later." Jackson scolds both of us.

"I'm sorry… ugh… it must be hard… ugh after you lost your child…" The woman pants heavily.

I jerk my head back. She offers me a small smile. Right, my fake child with Peeta. I didn't think this Capitol woman would show me her sympathy right now. And that's help me out of the frightening situation. Jackson sighs.

"Okay, just put some flashlight around me and you can go helping them prepare. Sanitize a knife or a scissors. Also prepare yourself for later, I can't do it with my arm."

I happily bring the flashlights for her.

"What is your name?" I ask the woman.

"It's Claudia." She says.

"You can do it." I say then run to the kitchen. Gale's sitting at the table. I sit down beside him.

"I don't understand." He starts. He certainly heard what Claudia said. "They've watched people die every year."

"Maybe because they don't have chance to know other tributes. They got close to their Victors. They don't know much outside the Capitol." I say.

"Maybe." He says then we fall to silence. We listen to the pot whistle softly, to Finnick opening and closing closets up stair, to Jackson shushing Claudia. As if we're not in a war, as if we're back to one of the nights in Twelve with my mother busy with a patient outside and I hid in the kitchen.

"Do you want to sleep a little?" Gale whispers. "I will prepare the scissor."

"Okay. Wake me up if Jackson calls." I say then lay my head on my arms. The woman sometimes shrieks with pain. That sound comes into dream with me. I'm on the Meadow. Around me there're a bunch of children. They sing and play with the dandelions. I hear a murmuring voice in the wind.

"Maybe because they don't even know the pain of bearing a child, they can watch them die every year."

"Just sleep, Catnip." Gale whispers into my ears. Ahhh, I sigh, that voice is mine. Maybe… maybe…

When I wake up, the first light of day has shined through the window. I'm alone in the kitchen. I walk outside. Gale was helping Claudia walk around the room. Finnick's on guard. Rhosy's in deep sleep.

"How is she doing?" I ask Jackson.

"Well, her first child so it's a little rough. Almost there, almost there, I hope it would come out in an hour." She says then doesn't hide a yawn.

"And how you're doing?" I sit down and open her bandage. The mutt's fang left limited damages thanks to the boot. But her leg is swollen where it broke. I change the bandages for her without comment. We both know our situation.

"Argh." Claudia gasps.

"Bring her here." Jackson calls. She checks Claudia then says shortly.

"It's time." I order my body to stay where I am.

"Hawthorn, give her something to hold on. Breathe, breathe. Look at me, Claudia. Breathe like this. Hah, huh, hah…Everdeen, your hands, put them here." Jackson says urgently. I glue my eyes at my hands to not to see any other things.

"Add some cool water, it's too hot. A little salt will be good. Keep breathing, you fool, don't stop. There there. Inhale, exhale." Jackson's voice is like a bell ringing next to my ears.

"Everdeen, put her leg higher. There there. Claudia, remember what I taught you last night. I will count to three. Okay?"

"I can't… do it." Claudia whimpers.

"You can, damn you. They do it all the time." Jackson smacks Claudia's leg harshly with her good hand then adds gentler. "You're doing good. Just a little more and you can meet your child."

Meanwhile I start feeling a little dizzy because I don't dare to blink, afraid my eyes might caught unpleasant scene and I might puke.

"Now, I will count. One, two, three… PUSH!... That's right. See, you can do it."

The warm liquid flows to my hand. I shift my eyes a little and…

"Jackson, Jackson, what's this?" I ask in panic. Now Jackson turns to smack me in the back.

"The baby's head. Steady your hand. That's good. Keep going. One, two, three… PUSH!" She says calmly.

That thing slips gently to my hand. A head? It's small, slippery and red, and covered in wrinkles. Then the biggest wrinkle opens and starts wailing. Oh, that's the mouth, not wrinkle.

"YAHHH !YAHHH!" It screams.

"Noisy and ugly." Finnick comments.

I look up. Gale and Finnick both stand next to Claudia, taking curious peeks at the baby.

"You all were that ugly, even you Odair. Now, back off, boys, she needs air." Jackson says. "Keep breathing, Claudia. One, two, three… there there… one, two, three. Here we go."

The newcomer of this world fully lies on my hands, squirming and wailing. A girl. I gaze at it.

"Everdeen, put her down to the clothes. Hawthorn, scissors." Jackson chuckles a little. I carefully lay the baby down and receive the scissors from Gale.

"There, cut it right there, where you put your little finger. Tie it. Lower. Okay. Now, take a bath. Remember, gently."

I lift the baby to the basin Gale prepared. The boys sit down next to me, observe the newborn. The warm water calms her down and she opens her eyes. They're black and clear, like two balls of coal.

"Wow." Three of us utter the same time. They're pretty.

"Oh, come on. Are you finished? Bring her here for her mother." Jackson calls out.

Gale helps me to rub the baby with a towel and we put her in a bundle. I lay her on her mother's stomach. She's crying again and mutters repeatedly.

"Thank you, thank you all."

"Here." Jackson hands me a little heavy bundle. "Bring it to the bathroom and pour it down the toilet."

I do what she said, don't want to know what's inside. When I stand in the bathroom, I feel my body trembling. You did well, Katniss. I say to myself. My hands, they usually brought deaths, some times they brought some back to life, and now they just welcomed a new life. It's feel... good. I see my reflection in the mirror. I'm smiling. Suddenly, Gale rushes in.

"Katniss, I hear the car. The husband's back."


	31. Chapter 31

******************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 31**

I run to the living room with him. Finnick's packing things as fast as he can. I run to the window. Yes, I can hear it sounding through the quiet street. Not very close but not very far, either.

"Everdeen, come here." Jackson says urgently. I run to her. She pulls out the Holo.

"This is how to open it…" She's about to say when I protest.

"No, don't teach me. You're coming with us."

"We all know that I can't. I'm useless. Can't walk, can't shoot. So stop being a fool and listen to me." She growls.

"No, I won't leave anyone again." I shout at her.

"Excuse me…" Claudia cuts in timidly.

"What?!" We turn and snap at her.

"I just think I can help." She says. Gale and Finnick stops on their track to hear what she would offer.

"You can wear my clothes and my wigs. I can do make-up so they won't recognize you. I can tell my husband you're from my mother's family. He won't know. And you can go to the hospital in city center with me." She breathes out excitedly.

"Really?" I ask again, can't believe in the odds.

"Yes, of course, you helped me. We might die without you." Claudia smiles softly.

Our team exchanges a quick glance and thing was settled. We dash up stair. Luckily, to find clean clothes last night, Finnick know where things we need are. We put on some big winter coat to hide our weapon, bring down stair two sets for Rhosy and Jackson. Claudia lays her sleeping baby aside and quickly coats our faces in thick make-up powder. We finish our disguise in miraculously short time. Her husband rushes in the room right after Gale puts on his head a baby blue wig.

"Claudia, dear, I'm so… Who are you?" He stops at the doorway.

"Oh, dear. They're my cousins and my aunt from my mother's family. She was sick so they can't evacuate. They helped me. Come here, see your daughter." Claudia says quickly and raises the baby to distract her husband. It's not a good lie but he believes her right away.

"Oh, oh, oh. Look at her. My little baby." He's cooing while walking toward his wife. "I'm sorry I can't get doctors here and the traffic is terrible. I can't come back earlier."

They exchange kisses then he turns to us, eagerly shakes hand with everyone, except sleeping Rhosy.

"Thank you, thank you so much."

When he shakes Jackson's hand, he doesn't forget to ask her.

"You must be their aunt. How you're doing?"

"Oh, thank you. I had my leg stuck under a broken wall. I think it broke." Jackson doesn't hesitate pull her skirt a little to show him the bandage. He shrieks.

"That's awful. That's terrible. But don't worry, I will bring you and my wife straight to the hospital. What's about her? Is she okay?" He points to Rhosy.

"She's alright, a little tired from travelling." Finnick replies with a fake Capitol accent and pats gently on her head.

We pass the test excellently. Claudia's husband has all his attention to his wife and his daughter and believes everything she says. He actually drove an ambulance back. We get in the back of the car, leaving their family in the front discussing the name for their daughter.

"Your idea, it went well." Jackson squeezes my hand and whispers.

Gale taps on my back and Finnick gives me a thumb. It went really well. We make a progress which we might never get in two or three days with walking around and hiding. And we don't have to leave Jackson alone, waiting for the Peacekeepers find and kill her. Though it's still a risk put she in a Capitol hospital but she will have a chance. She gives me instruction about the Holo, implying on how to destroy it because it can become a small bomb. Finallly we part when our car reach a street filled up with evacuating civilians.

"I have to stop here. Just follow them and you may find shelter." Claudia's husband yells to us from the front.

Coin made progress, too. I exchange look with Gale. Maybe she announced our deaths to soldiers. I worry how my mother and Prim had coped with the news. Are they still safe?

"It's okay. We will watch out. Thank you for your ride." Finnick says and we jump out, Rhosy on Gale's back.

"Please take care of her." I whisper to Claudia.

"Of course I will. Good luck to you." She says.

We watch the car go away then mix into the crowd. I hold Finnick's hand and grab tightly to Gale's coat while his hand busy carrying Rhosy. The snow starts falling. People swirl around us. There're panicked people wearing only nightgowns and slippers, well prepared ones are heavily bundled in layers of clothes. A woman over there holds her pet dog and a comb. A little girl clutches her doll in one hand and her mother's jewelry box in the other. Money, food, treasure things, useless things, it seems like they carry everything they can touch when evacuating order was called. They talk about rebels and hunger while the children weep. I catch information here and there through their conversations.

"They say the rebels had reached the North Theater."

"They reached the Center Lake last night."

"The president ran away."

"I heard they opened his mansion for refuges. I never thought he was the one who murdered Lady Iris. That's awful."

"How could they cross the Outdoor Fashion center? I heard the Peacekeepers assemble there."

"Faster, people from north area will arrive soon and we need to find shelter before them."

"I heard there might be attacks from the south."

"Yes, but I also heard they had already pulled up the bridge."

They didn't announce to public about us. Maybe afraid of causing a new chaos. And Snow couldn't run away. The mountain around the Capitol and the rebel's air force wouldn't let him do that. The rebels have made a great progress. Coin must announce our deaths. I worry about my mother and Prim. How did they cope with the news? Are they even safe enough to hear it? Finnick tugs my hand and points to a narrow alley. We creep into it. After an hour or so, Rhosy wakes up, I fill her in the information. Now, we need her to sneak into the president's mansion.


	32. Chapter 32

**********************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 32**

"What exactly are we looking for?" Gale asks, may be the tenth time.

"Anything unusual. I told you, I couldn't get out of the tray to know which one I was." Rhosy rolls her eyes.

"What we're doing is really sick and gross, you know." Finnick complains.

Yes, it's really sick and gross. We're checking like a hundred of trays keeping corpses of Center Hospital's mortuary. And it's just the second of four mortuaries of this big hospital.

I thought the hardest part was how to get in the hospital. If we had known this, we would insist Claudia's husband to drive us to the hospital. Instead, we had to swim against people heading to the center Square, creep down the underground drains, arrive at the hospital's yard at night, use Rhosy's lifeless figure to get in it. The hospital is full of wounded soldiers. It's like we walk right into the mouth of a sleeping wolf mutt. A mistake and they won't need to use gun, they can enclose and crush four of us with their bodies alone. No, it's not the worst part. The worst part is now, when we have to pull out the corpses and check the tray to find the hidden tube connecting the hospital with the underground laboratory. The underground laboratory is where Capitol scientists, doctors and pharmacists research their drugs and poisons, do experiments on prisoners and drug testers and Avoxes, where they create mutts. Of course they need somewhere like a hospital to dump the corpses, or reuse the corpses from the hospital, and supply to the hospitals good organs. Their connection is tight.

When Rhosy was first brought down the laboratory, she lost her weight after experiments. She was so thin that one night, she finds out she can sneak through the bars. She crawled into the tube where they dumped corpses with a hope that it would lead her out. But she ended up facing a label tying to a corpse's toe that said Center Hospital. She didn't have time to get out. The doctors were coming in. Rhosy crawled back to her prison then gradually gave up her plan of running away. After all, she didn't have anywhere to go. That's her story.

To say exactly not all of us have to searching the trays. Rhosy is too weak to wrestle with the corpses and I'm too frightened so Finnick and Gale let me guard the doorway.

"Katniss, you definitely have to kill me off before I fall into their hand." Gale says.

"Sure, I promise." I reply. From the door I can see the things he just pulled out of the tray and lays it on the metal table but due to the weird form of it and Gale's face when he looked at it, I'm sure I don't even want my enemy end up like that.

"Hey, I think I found it." Finnick calls. We excitedly gather around him.

"Lift me up." Rhosy says. He helps her to climb in the tray to check the inside. "Yeah, that's it. Damn, I'm sorry… I didn't know it was one-way door."

Her sentence throws us down the floor. All our effort and time in the cold mortuary are for nothing.

"Use a grenade."Gale says.

"And call the guards and the Peacekeepers here?" Finnick asks back.

"Just do it. We lost too much time with it. I don't want to back off and find another way." I say. I'm afraid if we do that, meanwhile the rebels will win and we won't have a chance to face Snow. I won't be able to find out about Peeta or the secret of Coin.

"Let's me try the Holo. Rhosy, get out." I stand up. "If someone comes, we can hide in the trays, right?"

Gale and Finnick look at each other and give me a hesitating nod. Rhosy crawls and jumps out of the tray. I throw the Holo to the end of it, say the word "nightlock" three times and close the door, slide its lock. The explosion blows the door, nearly crashes my face if Gale didn't pull me backward. And it can be heard, I believe. Damn, too much evidence. We see a dim light at the end of the tray.

"Quick!"Gale says shortly and lifts Rhosy to the tray.

"Aww, it's hot." She shrieks but keeps crawling in. I throw my bow inside and Gale helps me climb in.

The metal is burning, even through my thick coat. I grit my teeth, letting the pieces of the door cut into my palms. This tube is smaller than the ventilation shaft. Maybe because of my coat but we can't survive the icy cold without them. There's a rail road with the size of the tray under me. It gives the crawling more painful. I can't know how far I have reached, just concentrating at crawling. Stupid, I want to beat myself. The Peacekeeper will come and a grenade will be thrown down and the last one… Gale? Finnick?

KABOOM!

"No!" I choke out.

"Go, Katniss, go!" A voice resounds in the tube. "Don't stop!" That's Gale behind me. Then… Finnick…

KABOOM!

KABOOM!

KABOOM!

What? Why there're so many explosions? I continue crawling in confuse. The tube turns dip, coming into the ground. Right when I feel my lungs want to collapse, my hands and my bow slip out of the metal surface. I look up. Rhosy just turned on the light. The room looks like the mortuary, just smaller. She helps me out. After a while, Gale crawls out and then Finnick.

"I thought… I thought…" I stammer.

"I don't want to leave him alone with two beautiful girls." He jokes. I punch his arm.

"What happened?" I ask.

Finnick raises his hands and points to his boots. There're wires tying around his wrists and his boots.

"That's his idea. We tied the wires to grenades and threw it in other trays. I used my trident to pull the corpse on the table back to our tray to cover us." He shrugs. Then while he's crawling, he would pull off those grenades, blowing some doors to distract.

"Wow." Rhosy says in awe. Gale is just genius. In a short time and he could think of something like that.

"Give him an applause, girls?" Finnick laughs and we do.

"Gee, stop it, all of you. Let's move." Gale growls. Our small group runs out of the room, into a long white hallway with tightly closed doors.


	33. Chapter 33

**************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 33**

The first thing smashing into my sense is the smell of roses. Then the cold air makes the inside of my nose hurt. The hidden door from the underground laboratories opens to the rose garden inside the mansion. The color of rose bushes seems more vivid among the white background of snow. Snow sucks away the sound of the world. I crouch and jump out of the hole. The rest follows me. The garden is so large and snow falls so heavily that it's difficult for us to find the direction to the white mansion. I clutch my coat.

"Katniss!" Gale grabs my arm. I turn to see him put his finger on his lip.

I listen. Cut through the quietness of a snowfall day, I hear the gun.

"The rebels are here." Gale confirms what I think.

"To the front, we will mix in with the refugees." I turn to Rhosy, hoping what I heard in the crowd was right. Snow is the only thing covering us while we're running through the empty yard between the garden and the mansion. We stick to the wall. When I turn around the corner, I become aware of the scene before the mansion. They didn't let refugees get inside the building. People are gathering, sitting, lying on the stairs leading to the closed door. Scared, tired, frostbitten, hunger. Children and old people suffer the most. They're looked nothing like the colorful crowd I saw the first time I laid my feet on Capitol's station.

"Katniss, I think you can go up by that." Rhosy points out a frame next to the big column of the veranda. It's for the tree to climb up to the second floor's balcony. In winter, there's only the bare stem left, still sticking around the frame.

I nod then we carefully reach to the frame. The shooting gun comes nearer. I hide my bow into my coat then put my foot on the frame, gritting my teeth when my bare hand touches the frozen metal.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Someone shouts. I swing my head and see two Peacekeepers just came out of the corner.

"Go!" Gale taps on my back.

"Why, why, you said the mansion was opened for refugees and now you left us out here." Finnick yells in Capitol accent. People on the stair near us turn to see what happened. They heard Finnick and start yelling the same question. The Peacekeepers land in an embarrassing situation with the refugees. Good job, Odair. I use the chance to take some steps.

"The rebels! The rebels!"

The snow has become lighter so from my position I can see outside the barricade of the mansion, the crowd is thrown into turmoil. The rebels are trying to pass through them, driving them out of their way to the mansion.

And then, standing out of the whiteness of the sky, a hovercraft arrives. On its body is Capitol's seal. It hovers over the crowd before the mansion.

And then scores of silver parachutes rain down on them. In a moment, I even catch a sight of the pilot. An image flashes through my memory. District Nine?

And then the parachutes go off. Right on the hand of people who happily received the parachutes, hoping for food or medicine inside… My eyes are dazzled with the red color on white background. My ears are ringing with the wailing and screaming. The Peacekeepers and the rebels both stop their struggling to run to the wounded crowd. There're still several parachutes left unopened.

And then I see a group of white uniforms reaching. The rebels' medic team. Rushing to aid. Where did I see a similar situation? People, who come to aid, will be blown off.

"Prim." I breathe out her name.

And then I catch a glimpse of the blond braid down her back. My mother is right beside her. They're running to a wounded child. I want to jump down from the frame but my palm's skin sticks to it and Gale beneath me keeps pushing me up. He can't see them. He doesn't know.

"PRIM! GET OUT!" I scream.

She's yanking off her coat to cover the child. I keep shouting her name.

And then I think my mother hears me.

And then I see my mother pulls Prim to her…

And then I see her long dark brown hair…

And then…

The rest of the parachutes go off.

She made me think of the woods with her brown hair and deep green eyes. She made me feel sympathy toward her tragic life, though it was told with her unemotional voice. She made me feel hatred toward her rose-like smell, too much like him, and her brutal and blunt talking. She made me feel scared of her hidden intention and her threatening, again, like him, even when she helped me I don't know what she really wanted. In her delusion, she said she wanted me to remember her.

Rhosy Snow, you have what you want. I will never be able to forget you. I will never be able to forget the image of a slender girl blazing up then falling down under the foot of my mother and my sister. Damn you, you know I would never forget my debt. First my life, now my family's life, damn you.

_Go kill him for me._


	34. Part 4: The secret - Chapter 34

******************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 34**

Colors swirl around me. Blood, what all these blood sacrifice for? What kind of future will these flame and deaths bring down on us? Meaningless! All those dead people are civilian and medic. What were these bombs for?

"Katniss!"

I look down. Gale stands motionless as if he was pinned down to the ground. It was Finnick who called me. I find him in the panicked crowd, pointing at some spot above me. I turn back and see Snow standing at a window on third floor, looking down the scene calmly. Let's finish this. I yank my hand out of the frozen frame, leaving a large piece of my skin behind. I jump from the frame to the second floor balcony, kicking off the door.

When I reach his room with bow and arrow ready, the scene confuses me for a moment. Inside the room, there are chairs forming a circle. On each chair is a person with a hole on their forehead. _The council_, I think. Standing by the window, Snow turns to me. He raises his eyebrows in surprise then realizes my bow.

"Quite lovely costume, Miss Everdeen."

"Where's Peeta?" My voice cracks from shouting and the cold.

"I want to make a deal." He says. I'm furious. Who does he think he is to demand that right now? How dare he?

"No. Where is he?" I grumble.

"Just hear it, Miss Everdeen." He actually gives me a smile. I take a step ahead without saying anything.

"I take you to him. You help me killing Alma Coin." What? He's planning something fishy, isn't he? I raise my bow which I have lowered a little after he said his deal.

"Why?"

"If she is the person I supposed she is, she's definitely not your favorite." Snow glances down through the window. "And those were not my bombs."

He's right. Now standing in this room, I can recall my memories. The pilot's face. He's one of the gone over soldiers in Nine. And the bomb is Gale's which I saw in Special Weaponry. I put Coin and Snow on a scale and I actually feel like Snow was more believable. At least he is an enemy in front of me, not a supposed to be ally who stabbed me in the back.

"You still have to die." I snap.

"I have no intention of running away." He replies. Well, I can bring both of them down.

"Who is she?" I ask.

"It's not the time to tell story, Miss Everdeen." Snow says. I start hearing the noise from down stair. I grab the tissue box on the closet and wipe off the make-up. If I want to get through the crown, people need to see who I am.

"Take me to Peeta." I pull out my mini gun and point at him. He walks ahead of me as an arrogant prisoner. People part when they recognize me and him. There's murmuring between rebel's soldiers. _She's alive. The Mockingjay is still alive._ When we pass the injured crowd and out of the barricade, an army truck stops right before us and Haymitch jumps out.

"Katniss!" He gasps and runs to me. He stops in a position that normal people would hug each other but Haymitch and I were not born to do such intimate thing. Instead, he pats my shoulder several times until he realizes who I'm with.

"Haymitch, can we use the truck?" I ask and point at Snow. "He's leading me to Peeta."

Haymitch narrows his eyes.

"And you believe him?" He asks.

"Yes, I believe him." I say, trying to make my voice as firm as I can, and not so much desperation in it. Haymitch sighs and turns back to the truck, exchanges some talks with the driver and then we all settle in it. Snow tells the driver the direction and we're off.

"You're better returning him to us." Haymitch locks his eyes with Snow.

"If he's truly love her, he will return." That's what he said and also reason causing him a kick to stomach by Haymitch. I bite my nail. What will be the left of the boy with the bread? After all the tortured and drugs they used on him. Will I… I try not to think of the worst case but the thought already appeared in my head… Will I have to kill him to free him?

Snow leads us to the suburb very near to a mountain. We run through a small forest full of pines and stop by a small lake. There's a house on its bank. Snow's summer house. Haymitch, two soldiers escorting Snow and I go inside. In the study room, Snow tells me to open his private computer.

"Password?" I ask.

"Roseofsharon25." He's obsessed with rose. I type in the word and the floor behind us trembles. The bookshelves around us move upper, replaced by metal walls. The whole room is an elevator. We're going down and down. Finally when the elevator stops and a square hole opened on the wall, I find us in a big cave underground. It's almost as same as its natural shape, just adding man-made construction at the elevator, the road and the lighting system. The air is warm and heavy with humidity.

"Hot water underground." Haymitch mutters.

We take off our coats and leave them at the elevator room. The road is narrow. Outside the fence, it's just a dark space spiraled with hot steam.

"Here it is." Snow says. We stop before a blind metal door. A soldier reaches to the key hanging on the wall and opens the door. My emotions rise up inside my throat that I find it hard to breathe. Inside the door is darkness. Haymitch reaches to his flashlight.

"Peeta?"

The word gets out of my lips and I feel a strong impact on my shoulder and I fall to the ground. A flash of golden crosses my eyes. His large back. His familiar form.

"Peeta!" I cry.

He turns his head. It's him. It's really him. He doesn't stop. His face is full of frighten. Right, the drug. But it's alright. He's alive. I'm broken with happiness. He's alive. That's when I fully understand how much I hoped for him being alive, how much he means to me, how much I love him.


	35. Chapter 35

**********************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 35**

"Follow him!" Haymitch orders to the soldiers but I get up and stop them.

"No, let's me. Don't scare him."

And I run after him before anyone can oppose. This cave is really big and not every parts of it had roads and lights. I don't really know where I am. My feet run to where my eyes caught the glimpse of Peeta while my mind busy picking up its piece together by reliving all the moments I shared with him. The time when he gave me breads and also hope, the time when he confessed his love for me before the whole Panem, the time when our kiss became a special thing for me to hunger for, the day before the Quell we shared in the roof of Training Center, the time in the arena when I thought I had lost him, the night we shared on the beach… I clutch my breast pocket where the pearl is. My heart yearns for his embrace. There are so many things I want to tell him and the most important will be I love him.

"Peeta!"

I return to reality. I'm on a narrow road between the wall of the cave and a deep cliff and it has no fence, a remote area. Peeta was here, too. He stands idly near the edge of the road. I take some steps toward him.

"Peeta!" I call him. My voice quivers.

Peeta turns to me. He looks better than the last time I saw him on the television. At least he gained back his weight. He looks lost. I call him again. His whole body shudders when he saw me.

"It's me, Katniss." I say. Please let him remember me.

He steps back as I advance. My chest tightens with pain. Peeta's so close and yet so far. I slowly put down my bow and my mini gun I'm holding, even arrows in my back. His figure seems a little relax with my actions.

"Peeta, come back… Come back." I whisper.

"Katniss." I feel like I want to break all over again at his voice calling my name. I run to his opening arms as if it's an illusion.

And it is.

Am I dreaming? Because Peeta just threw me down to the ground, because he grabbed the knife that I forgot to take off from my boot and pressed it at my neck, because of what he's screaming… My nightmare became real.

"Mutt! You dirty mutt!" His blue eyes fill with rage.

"Peeta…" I call him weakly. His other hand pushes on my wounded shoulder. It's hurt. But the pain in my chest is hurt the most. My eyes watered.

"Peeta…" I call him again in desperation. I don't know what else I can say. I don't want to die and don't want to give up on him either. Even if I have weapon in my hand, I know I can't do anything. I have come this far to see him alive, to understand my own feeling for him. So far…

"Don't call my name… you filthy…" His voice is cracking. "Please don't…"

I see his pupils dilating and contracting rapidly then moist with tears. I slowly raise my free hand. He doesn't react with that. I run my finger on his face, wiping off the tear.

"Please come back… Peeta." I whisper.

"Katniss…" He shuts his eyes and jerks his face off my hand. "You only want to use me. You want to kill me. You are a mutt from Capitol." Keeping his eyes shut, Peeta chants words they pumped into his head. "I have to kill you. Kill you. Kill you."

When he raises the knife, I know I lost to the Capitol. I cry freely and close my eyes, waiting for the knife. It's okay, I owed him my life so now he can take it back. It's fair. Just my chest, it's hurt, really hurt. I hear the soft sound of a metal blade thrust into flesh. My chest is hurt.

"Katniss… It's alright." He whispers so softly, oh so much like the old days. "It's alright."

I feel his weight lift off me. I snap open my eyes. He's back. My sweet and gentle Peeta with his warm smile…

"Peeta!" I use my elbow to lift up.

… and… his hands hold my knife on his abdomen. That's when I remember the worst part of my nightmare. The smile just forming on my face fades away. Red blood stains his shirt like a blooming flower. He staggers backward, backward to the space behind him.

"Katniss! Where are you?" It was Haymitch. He's coming. I should call for help but words can't get out of me. I'm paralyzed. My eyes glue at Peeta. His smile. My brain stops working and can't find answer for my question. Why, why did he do that?

"I love you, Katniss… always love you." Peeta says.

Then maybe because of a rock beneath him or his injury, I don't know which, he falls. The darkness and the steam swallow him. A scream like from a wounded animal escapes my throat, resounds in the cave.

Cave? No, I'm deep in the woods, looking for my way out of it but no, the trees enclose me and the dead ones lie on the ground. I never got out of the Game. I'm still in it. Here lying little Rue, over there is Glimmer's swollen body, and I just cross Clove, her eyes still open. Marvel, Foxface, Cato. They're all dead. Come out, Peeta, they're all dead. We can come home. The rule changed. They let two tributes from the same District come home. Peeta. Who's that? That's my arrow on his body, right. Who else did I shoot? His blond hair is damp with blood. Peeta. I throw myself at his chest. No, Peeta, no. The wall made of trees comes closer, imprisoning me with his dead body inside. I claw the trees until my hands go numb and I can't raise it anymore. Let me die, let me die. But there's no one left to kill me. There's nothing left for me to use to kill myself. I'm forever lost in this arena.

_I hate you, Peeta. Why did you leave me? How can you leave me?_ I'm furious.

_No, no, I didn't mean it. I don't hate you. I love you, Peeta. Come back and hear me say it. I love you._ I sob.

_You promise me. When I asked you to stay with me… that night, that night you said always. _I couldn't catch the word that time but it stays in my head.

_I need you, Peeta. Please come back. Get me out of here. I need you._

_Peeta, I love you._

The mockingjay flies around in the sky and soon will fall down because it lost its branch where it feel safe, where it feel hope, where it feel whole. It will die.


	36. Chapter 36

**************************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 36**

I sit on my cage, holding my knees, watching the doctors fix the Mockingjay. I have one or two broken ribs from being thrown to the ground, my wounds on shoulders, my palms with skin scraped off, my face with scratching by my own hand. That's all they can fix so that they can bring back the shell of the rebellion bird. People can't offer me anything for the big hole in my heart. They come and talk, offering consolation, meaningless words. I refuse to talk. I don't even cry or using the morphling or anything to sleep. Sleep comes when my body is too tired. No dreams, no nightmare, just darkness, hollow. I won't find peace again, never.

Prim and mother, they spend all their break time from working to be at my side. Their embraces are warm but I can't find the steadiness and security. Haymitch reeks of alcohol, sharing the silence with me. We're truly defeated this time. Plutarch just comes to give information. Jackson visits me on her wheelchair. Gale and Finnick after being checked on their health and asked about our squad's members, come to see me together. Gale looks depressed. It's time when the death children before the President mansion come back and haunt him. Hundreds of lives now weigh on his shoulders.

"It was my bomb." He mutters, his face on his hands.

"I always wonder why she put you in the team. You did many things for her and supported her." Finnick says. Gale turns to him in puzzle.

"She wanted to use your bombs, your trap, and then she can blame you, a dead person if things go bad for her." Finnick explains.

"But why? It's the end of the war, there's no need to use them. And those were civilians and our own medics." Gale exclaims. Finnick quickly shushes him, and lowers his voice.

"It's her last hit on anyone supporting the old government. Don't you see people turned to her immediately?!"

"She's no better than Snow." Gale says. "I will tell Panem the truth. About the bombs and about our squad."

"Don't let emotions cloud your judgment, Hawthorn. We have no evidence left. The Holo was gone and I bet they shot down that hovercraft. Don't pull anyone else in this. There're enough deaths." Finnick snaps.

Gale wants to talk more but I know what's going on his head. His family, my family, Beetee, Annie, Jackson… too many people involving. He drops his head on his hands again.

"It was my bomb." He repeats.

I motion for Finnick to leave us alone. He gives me a pat on shoulder and leaves the room.

"Gale," I say. It's the first time I talk for a week. He looks up. "Gale, find Madge." I say.

"Katniss."

"Gale, listen to me. Madge can bring you peace and happiness. You need her." I say.

"Katniss, I need you. I…" He's being stubborn. I shake my head, stopping him.

"Look at us, Gale." I sigh. I use my bandaged hands to keep his face straight. Look at how broken we are. Gale and I are too much alike and when we're broken, we just can't help the other, we can't pick up other's pieces. The fire doesn't need adding to another fire to cause a disaster. It needs a hand to take care of it, to give it something to continue burning and being useful, not harmful. I lost mine and withered but he's not. He just doesn't realize it yet.

Gale swallows hardly. It's the first time I see the weakness in his eyes. In years we push ourselves to be strong and brave for our family's sake. We didn't realize how weak we are. Madge and Peeta, even the sound of his name is hurt, they're actually the stronger.

Knock! Knock!

I let go of Gale. Plutarch and my doctor are standing at the doorway.

"Did I interrupt something?" He asks. He manages to wear the most serious face every times he comes and sees me.

"No, it's fine. I'm about leaving." Gale says. He stands up and hugs me.

"You will always be my best friend and I just want the best for you. Go find her. Do it for me." I whisper.

"Okay, Katniss." He whispers back.

Plutarch brings me information as always while the doctor undoes the bandage on my hands. I open and close them. I can use my bow again. It's time for me to finish the deal with Snow, to revenge. I will kill them both.

"Plutarch." I cut in the flow of information which I didn't let in my head even a word. "Tell President Coin I want to execute Snow as soon as possible."

He's a little surprising at me talking but quickly grabs the situation. He turns to the doctor.

"We can release her in a few days." The doctor says. Plutarch nods his head.

"Okay. I will tell her."

They leave. I lie alone, watching grey clouds passing the window. I wonder what I will do in the execution to kill both of them. What if Coin doesn't show up? Well, if Snow knows her, when he asked me this deal, he must calculate everything. Then what I will do after that. They will punish me for sure. What about my family? Whoever steps ahead will be different from Snow and Coin. They will leave my family alone. Will Prim be alright?

"Sometimes I just wish you can cry. Maybe that will make you feel a little better."

I turn my head. Prim sits down beside me, puts my food tray on the closet. I sit up, eating while she combs my hair. She tells me about the work, tells me how different and how modern things are in Capitol hospital.

"Prim, tell me, what you want to do after we return to Twelve." I ask. Prim loses a while at surprising and crying happily because I speak.

"Katniss. You want to come back to Twelve?" Prim asks. I nod. I won't come back anywhere but I won't tell her that.

"Katniss. I… They say if we want, if we want, mother and I can work and study in the new hospital in District Four. But… if you don't want to move to Four, I will stay in Twelve with you. I can learn myself." She says. Her eyes spark when she mentioned about Four. I know how much she wants to become a doctor. And mother will take good care of her like she did in the bombing.

"No, Prim. You will go to Four. I will be fine." I tell her.

"Really?"

"Yes, I will be fine." I say and gaze at the window. Yes, when I'm done here, maybe I can even meet him again.


	37. Chapter 37

******************************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 37**

My family has been given a room in the mansion. I usually sit by the window, waiting for day end and for the execution. The woods and the dead ones dance around me. But I can't find him among them. I want him to be there but I even lost the sight of him to the darkness. I'm scared of bathing. The steam in the bathroom engulfs me, hurting me. My wound, my lost is still fresh.

Finally, Coin summons me. She's working at the room where I found Snow with the dead council. Now in the new chairs sitting Finnick, Annie, Haymitch with a bottle, typical, and Beetee.

"What's this?" I ask.

"We don't know yet." Finnick shrugs.

"A gathering of remaining victors. Seventy five years and these are all that's left." Haymitch says with his drawling voice then laughs bitterly. He gulps down another mouthful wine. I look around again. Where are other victors? Did they all die under Coin's hand, scaring they would not support her? Haymitch and Beetee, not really people of public, so they're not threats to her. Annie with her unstable mind is the same. Finnick and I are unplanned survival. What does she want from us today?

"Sit down, please, Katniss." Says Coin, putting aside her documents.

I take a seat between Haymitch and Finnick. As usual, Coin gets right to the point.

"I've asked you here to settle a debate. Last week, hundreds of his accomplices in the oppression of Panem and Snow himself have been tried and now await their own deaths. However, the suffering in the districts has been so extreme that these measures appear insufficient to the victims. In fact, many are calling for a complete annihilation of those who held Capitol citizenship. However, in the interest of maintaining a sustainable population, we cannot afford this."

I feel like I can guess where she's going.

"So, an alternative has been placed on the table. Since my colleagues and I can come to no consensus, it has been agreed that we will let the victors decide. A majority will approve the plan. No one may abstain from the vote," Coin continues.

And I also know that whatever she wants us to decide I will do what she wants. Only doing that will bring me to the executioner position.

"What has been proposed is that in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final, symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power." She says.

"I vote yes." I say immediately. The others don't have time to utter a "what" toward Coin's announcement now swing their heads to me.

"No, it would set a bad precedent. We have to stop viewing one another as enemies. At this point, unity is essential for our survival. No." Beetee shakes his head.

I lock eyes with Finnick. _Come on, Finnick, we're unplanned survival of her murder plan. Support her or Annie will be in danger._ Think like that, please, Finnick. _Even though you don't know about my deal with Snow, you should consider things like that._

"I'm with the Mockingjay." Haymitch says. After all, we're alike. He understands me, he knows I have a something inside my head. Only Finnick matters now. He will vote for two, Annie will be on his side no matter what. Please Finnick.

"I'm with Katniss." Finally he says. Annie follows him. An absolute victory for Coin. I let out my breath in relief.

"Excellent. I will make an announcement after the execution. Katniss, your request was approved. You will be informed about the time later. Now all of you will be dismissed. Thank you for your attending today." Coin says.

People leave the room in silent. I stay at last.

"What's wrong?" Coin looks up from the table.

"I just want to ask for a proper grave for Rhosy in District Ten. Please don't add her surname on it." I say. That's the least I can do.

"I understand." Coin nods and I leave the room.

I wander unconsciously around the mansion for the left of the day. When I come back to my sense, I find myself in a storage room. There're thousands of tapes around me. Documentary, events, television show, they're all here. I run my finger on a row of tapes with the name Hunger Game on them. Twenty three every year, one extra year with forty seven, for seventy four years, that's how many children died for a war ending seventy five years ago. Suddenly I feel an urge to see them, to see the face of the fall tributes, to remember them. I want to gather the dead ones to my own arena then maybe they would lead me out.

I slump down in the lone chair of the storage room before the television. I don't watch the game, stopping the tapes when the interviews end. I find for myself a paper and a pen. I write down the name. Those early years. The tributes are young, frightened, starve, they all are. Careers were not yet exist. Tributes from same District still lingered to each other, holding hands on their chariot. Gradually they realized the reality. Hand lets go of other. Was it like today? Seventy five years ago and a group of winners cast their votes on initiating the Hunger Games, sealing the fate of hundreds of children, dividing families, friends, lovers, and dividing districts. _Don't worry_, I murmur with every tapes, _I will make a stop for it_.

Face after face, name after name.

"Rose of Sharon Milch"

My hand slips, causing a line of ink on the paper. Rose of Sharon. I thought that's a type of rose. A slender girl walked up to the podium. She's looked weak and angry. No one cried for her. Is she an orphan? No sighing of relief. The people just looked down to the ground. Why? The next thing catching my attention is when the escort received a slip from the Mayor and she read the name on it for the male tribute.

"Cervus Deorr."

I quickly grab the box of the tape. The 25th Annual Hunger Games – the First Quarter Quell – where the tributes were chosen by their own District's voting.


	38. Chapter 38

**********************************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 38**

I return to the beginning of the tape. I didn't realize this sooner but it happened at every districts, except the Careers' Districts. Only one slip that bearing the name whole district had voted for was given to the escort. The orphan, the loneliest, the weakest, the most useless child become the sacrifice for other children. No wonder the district bowing their head in shame, the tributes walking up to the podium in anger. Betrayal.

"The female tribute is Aileen Gardyner."

Clank!

The pen rolls on the floor. My eyes are dazzled because of sudden standing up. But there's no mistake. That long dark brown hair, those green eyes. That's Rhosy.

_"He named you Rhosy and let you have this face."_

That's the girl whom Rhosy's face was changed to. She's so small, even smaller than Prim and Rue at twelve. She's the tribute of Eleven. It's definitely not a coincidence. This is the clue leading me to find out the link between Snow and Coin. I grab the box again. Victor is one of the Careers. I decide to watch the game. Nothing special and it ended real quickly. That time the Gamemaker had some mistakes with the arena. The girl from Ten and little Aileen died at the bloodbath with ten others. Victory belonged to one of the Careers. I watch the whole tape again. Except for the name Snow using as his password and the face of Aileen, I couldn't find anything can be related to Snow and Coin. Both those girls were orphan and they didn't survive the bloodbath to give me any other clues. What are they to Snow and Coin?

Who are they?

I sit in silence and darkness until the guards find me and escort me back to my family's room. I spend the night trying to figure things until I drift into my cage with new faces, new names I watched in that room. Then the next day I decide to forget about it. It wouldn't mean anything after what I would do to those two.

A few days later, I'm woken up by Prim. Following her voice is the sound of shrieking. I rub my eyes and realize standing around my bed is my prep team. They're looked thinner but they're alive, that's enough.

"Katniss! Katniss!" They call my name and hug me and cry. Strangely, I don't feel that annoying. Since that day others always tell me how sorry they are, and that I have to move on or something like that. My prep team with their innocence and idiocy actually make me feel more comfortable. As if they shed my tears for me. I shush them until they gain their calmness back.

"I thought I would never see you again. How could you survive?" I ask Venia.

"Plutarch Heavensbee hid us in his old friend's house. Right before your game." She says.

"I did the same with Peeta's prep team and stylish but they were a little too late to go to planned place." Plutarch says. Now I realize he's sitting on the sofa. Next to him is another surprise to me. Polished from her metallic gold wig to her patent leather high heels, gripping a clipboard. Remarkably unchanged except for the vacant look in her eyes. Today must be the day.

"Effie." I get up from the bed. She does the same and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"It's good to see you again." She says honestly. Good, she doesn't mention his name again. She lets go of me and picks up her clipboard. "Well, it looks like we've got another big, big, big day ahead of us. So why don't you start your prep and I'll just pop over and check on the arrangements."

"Okay." I nod.

The prep team helps me with the bath. One last time a beautiful puppet and I'm done with the world. I put on the Mockingjay suit, secretly checking the nightlock pill. It's still here. Octavia secures my Mockingjay pin over my heart and we step out of the bathroom.

"Where's my bow and arrows?" I ask Plutarch.

He opens the long box next to him and gives me my bow. It was polished, got rid of scratches.

"And here's your arrow." He gives me the sheath with only one ordinary arrow. "You will fire the last shot of the war. A symbol."

"Oh." I utter. Only one shot to kill two people. "What if I miss?" I ask.

Plutarch laughs as if I'm joking. "You won't miss. We have to go now. Effie will escort you. I have something to finish before I go there." He says.

I give Prim a hug, our last hugging. I wish my mother was here. They might not understand why but it's the right thing I have to do. I can't let Coin live and threaten and use me forever. And the game. It has to be ended.

"Wait." I tell Effie. We're walking down the hallway in the first floor. Snow has stopped falling outside. I can see the garden through the window. "I want a rose."

Effie raises her eyebrows. I'm not the kind of girl who likes flower.

"I want to place it in his lapel before I shoot him." I say. Maybe I can have a moment with him so that I will know what to do with only one arrow. Effie considers my request a little then we both go to the garden. Only the roses in the glass house have flower. I choose a white one just coming to its blooming.

Effie leads me to the front doors of the mansion. The City Circle runs over, spills people down the side streets. The others take their places outside. Guards. Officials. Rebel leaders. Victors.

"What is that for?"

I turn my head and face Coin.

"I want to place it in his lapel. He always wore a rose in public. It makes this more real." I answer. Coin looks at the rose with strange silence.

"I'll do it for you." She says and quickly grabs the flower and steps out. I immediately realize my chance.

I hear the cheers that indicate Coin has appeared at the door. Then Effie taps my shoulder, and I step out into the cold winter sunlight. Walk to my position, accompanied by the deafening roar of the crowd. As directed, I turn so they see me in profile, and wait. When they march Snow out the door, the audience goes insane. They have his hands in cuff, which is unnecessary. He's not going anywhere. We have a deal. He takes a quick glance at Coin and smirks. He knows she would be right here.

I feel the bow purring in my hand. Reach back and grasp the arrow. He's only ten yard away. I won't miss even though I might not have time to aim carefully. I check the arrow. It's solid and long enough, I hope. I block out the roaring of the crowd and concentrate at his face. Coin says something and steps forward to give him the rose. The time has come. I raise my bow and shoot. The arrow lands next to his feet. Snow grabs it, springs up and catches Coin's neck. The guards converge on me and enclose him. The audience screams.

In the chaos, I can't hear it clearly but I can read his mouth. Just right before he plunges the arrow so strongly into her heart, through her body and to his own. They fall to the ground together.

"It's okay. I'm here, Rhosy."

That's what he said to her.


	39. Chapter 39

************************************************************************************************************************************** some reviewers: I want to say sorry for not responding your reviews. Maybe you will find the answer you want if you continue reading. *innocent wink* ^o^ Thank you for your attentions. **

**************************************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 39**

As the gray uniforms conceal the scene around me, I feel tears filling in my eyes and the clues filling in my mind. Damn it. Rhosy. Rose of Sharon. Who can guess it?! Alma Coin was a tribute of the Hunger Games, the first Quarter Quell. A person was supposed to be dead. Snow must be the male tribute, the only explanation of how he knew Aileen. _We have to do it by our own hands for the intimacy._ Right, they came from Ten. That's why she must be near him in the execution, she must put the rose on his lapel, why he asked me _**to help him killing her, not to kill her**_. He hated Districts, he hated Panem. All of his madness, his hatred toward Districts came from fifty years ago. The Districts betrayed them.

I cry. The Hunger Game was set up as a revenge of Capitol toward Districts. I can't believe it has been continued as a revenge of tributes toward Districts who betrayed them. It might have been continued to revenge the Capitol. So many children had to and might have to die. Hatred continues by hatred. Killing continues by killing. And their controlling system still goes on through everything. If Coin wasn't dead, how long the new Panem would last until another war break out? Damn it. Damn the Capitol. Damn all those people who set the game up. They had foreseen it. How the game would divide this country, how the special rule of the first Quartel Quell would create a new generation of hatred. They still control it even when they're dead. Snow is just a pawn in their palms, a monster they created. Damn them. Damn them.

_I wish I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their Games._

Peeta. Everything is just pieces of their games.

_I'm coming, Peeta._ I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink into flesh. I yank my head back in confusion to find myself looking into Gale's eyes.

"Let me go!" I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his gasp.

"No! I can't. I was there for you, now it's time for you to be alive for me." He growls.

As the guards pull me away from him, I see the deep violet pill fall out of the ripped pocket and my last solution to die as myself gets crunch under a guard's boot. I go mad and depress at the same time. Crying, kicking, screaming, struggling, biting. Useless. The guards bring me into the mansion, cuffing me and blindfold me. And when my screaming and crying go worse, they put a cloth into my mouth. I don't know where they take me and I don't care anymore. The time they release the handcuff will be the time I find death again. I'm done with them. My family, Gale. People will be fine without me. I'm the only one who will never be fine again with all the things I have faced and without Peeta.

But they don't release anything until I feel a needle jam into my arm. No! No! They're drugging me. My body gradually goes limp. Darkness clouds my mind while it sobs. No… no… just let me die… there's nothing for me in this life…

When I open my eyes, I'm locked to a bed in the hospital. A needle sticks to one of my arms. There's no strength in my muscles. I don't even have strength to scream. They don't let me die. Why? I helped in killing their president. Don't waste your time and also my time with trial or figuring my reasons. Just kill me. Don't make me live as your pawn. Please… I drift off again…

I wake up again. Still the same scene. How long will they keep me like this? What's happening outside these walls? Can I just die when my mind gives up but my body still lingers to life by survival instinct?

"I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other."

I lift my head up to find the voice's owner. Am I in some kind of delusion? In the corner of the white room, Snow's sitting on a chair, watching me with amusement.

"You died." I whisper with croaked voice.

"Yes, I died." He laughs. "But I forget to say thank you for the rose so I came back."

"Which rose?" I ask.

"Ah, what's a pity you don't like roses." Snow stands up. "Look at them. You don't think they're beautiful?"

I find the locks around my arms and legs open. I step down of the bed and follow Snow into his rose garden. They're blooming. Dew-drops on their petals are gleaming under the sunlight. Snow cuts down a small one and gives it to me.

"Primrose – the first rose." He says.

He continues walking. I follow. We arrive at a stone bench and sit down.

"I heard a rumor that your hands not only bring death." He means the baby I helped on delivery.

"What do you want by bringing it up?" I grunt.

"You're a survival, Katniss Everdeen. I don't think you would back down in a game. That wouldn't be you. If you give up now, you don't die as yourself, girl. You will die as a pawn finishing its role. Life is also a game, a big game where good and bad fight each other. Even in the arena, there's still goodness beside death. There's still hope and beautiful things, innocent people in life. Fight for yourself. Live as yourself. I was wrong for living as their pawn and I was condemned by burning in hatred and anger. Do you want to die with sorrow, hopeless and defeated?"

"There's no hope left for me." I mutter.

"Oh, you thick skull. I didn't lie to you. Just don't give up yet." He laughs. The rose garden around me fades away. So does Snow. I'm at the white room again. Familiar faces come to my vision. Prim and Haymitch.

"Katniss, your trial's over," she says. "Come on. We're going home."


	40. Chapter 40

******************************************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 40**

The nurses come and help me bathing and dressing. A guard lifts me like a doll and carries me to the roof of the hospital, onto a hovercraft and fastens me into a seat. My mother is there. Prim and Haymitch climb in, followed by Plutarch. In a few moments, we're above the clouds.

Plutarch gives me information as always. After the execution, an emergency election was thrown together and the Commander of Eight, Paylor was voted in as president. Plutarch was appointed secretary of communications, which means he sets the programming for the airwaves. The first big televised event was my trial, in which Gale, Beetee, Finnick and Jackson step up as witness in my defense, accusing Coin with murdering our squad. I believe Paylor and Plutarch had cut off the part about the bombs. They don't want another ruckus in Capitol people community. Doctors step up, confirming my depressed condition lately. After all, they don't know what to do with me when the war's over. I'm still some kind of war hero.

"How's Paylor?" I ask Plutarch.

"She's our best choice. She denied the announcement of Coin for another Hunger Games. I think that's the things you want to know the most." He replies.

We stop briefly in Three to drop off Plutarch. He wants to update the technology on the broadcast systems.

"Ah, almost forget. I think you still want to keep these." He runs back to the hovercraft to give me a small box. Inside are my mockingjay pin and my pearl. I almost break down when I touch the pearl. It's hurt to see it again but also hurt if I lost it. When we're back to the sky, Haymitch starts wandering through every compartment on the hovercraft, finding the liquor. As a good mentor, he leaves my family a time alone.

"I'm sorry, Katniss, I can't go back with you." My mother says in tears while squeezing my hands. She doesn't abandon us. She tries hard in her own way by helping others. And it's unbearable for her back in Twelve with memories of my father and the ashes.

"It's okay, mother. I understand. You two will do more goods in Four than back home." I says to her and Prim. My sister shakes her head gently.

"Only mother will go to Four. I go back with you. I still have times and I can learn by myself. They will soon construct hospital in Twelve when people come back." She says.

"No, Prim. Just go to Four and do what you want to do." I exclaim.

"And I want to be with you." She says firmly, cut off the discussion. I will never be able to kill myself off before my little sister. And well, maybe I'm a survival after all. I really do not want to lose without fighting.

We stop again in Four. Mother gives me and Prim hug and kiss. She stands and watches us until the hovercraft is concealed by the clouds.

"Where's Gale?" I ask Prim.

"They gave him a job in Two. He said he wanted to learn about the law and he would visit us soon after his family settled." She says. I believe he would help making the new law fair and just, his way of redemption.

"What's about you? Why are you going back?" I turn to Haymitch holding a bottle, the result of his searching earlier.

"They can't seem to find a place for me in the Capitol either," he says.

It's night when we land on the green of the Victor's Village. Half of the houses have lights in the windows, including Haymitch's and mine. From the house next to mine, Madge walks out with Buttercup on her hands. She has taken care of him since all my family went to the Invasion. The creature jumps off her hand and runs to Prim's. We walk to my house. Greasy Sae and her granddaughter and Madge have prepared the dinner. They tell me almost everyone has come back to Twelve. Destroyed, full of ashes and death, it's still our home. Tomorrow, they will start tidying up the district, gathering remains. They will dig a mass grave in the Meadow. They ask me if I want to come. I refuse and say I would pay my respect some other time.

The next day, after assuring Prim that I wouldn't try anything foolish, I sit alone on my house's veranda. Buttercup shows his sympathy toward his broken enemy by lying silently in my lap. Or he just finds my lap was the warmest place for him to wait for Prim. I sit like that for hours until finally I break down and cry. Peeta's house is just across the road and right over there is the place I plunged myself into his arms and we fell down the ground full of snow before the cameras. I leave Buttercup on the chair alone and run back to my room, locking me inside until Prim comes back.

A few days later when I think I gain enough strength, I decide to hunt again. Madge gives me my father's hunting jacket. I put the pearl on the pocket and go out with my old bow and arrows. I go to the woods, realizing I'm still weak to do anything else other than walking here. I lie down at my usual meeting place with Gale. I pull out the pearl and start singing. The valley song. The song that made Peeta fell in love with me. Except that time, have I ever sung for him? How much I wish to turn back in time and sing for him, just one time. Then I sing every song I know to the pearl until I hardly make out a sound. I stumble back after leaving a bunch of wild flowers on the mass grave.

That goes on and on for months. I go to the woods, hunting and then singing until my voice cracks, then go back home after leaving flowers for the dead. I hear Peeta's mom working with Greasy Sae on a food store but I can't bring myself come to see her. So much pain. I start wondering if there's a way for me to fight off the pain. I'm just lingering. I'm still losing.

Then one morning, while I'm putting on my jacket, preparing for the hunting as always, the bell rings.

"Can you open it for me?" Prim calls out from the kitchen. She's preparing the breakfast.

I open the door. Standing at my house's veranda, still small and slender as I saw her before. Her hair is in a bunch and turns to grey color, her eyes are gentle though tired.

"Good morning, Katniss." She says.

I greet her as if she's my old friend and I was expecting her.

"Good morning, Aileen."


	41. Chapter 41

**********************************************************************************************************************************************Disclaimer: the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins**

**Chap 41**

We stand and look at each other for good minutes. Then the sound of something falling to the floor startles us. I turn my head to see Prim holding her mouth, her eyes watering, pieces of a dish on the floor.

"It's not her, Prim." I say quietly.

"I… I'm sorry." She stutters then tumbles down to tidy up the broken dish.

"Come on in." I say to Aileen then lead her to the living room. I come back to Prim.

"Are you okay?" I ask. The memory of the bombing still haunts her, certainly.

"Yes, yes, I am. Who is she, Katniss?" She whispers.

"Someone I know at the Capitol." I say. "Can you bring us some tea?"

Then I go to the living room. As I sit down, Aileen looks up.

"You watched the tape." She says. I nod to confirm. "How strange. No one ever conceal it and yet no one ever wonder."

"Dead tributes will be forgotten." I say.

"Especially who they want to forget." Aileen smirks. Her eyes light up in anger. They're back to normal when she says thanks to Prim for bringing tea for us.

"You want whole story?" She asks. I nod again.

"Ahh." She sighs deeply and the story begins.

"We had a really long training time. A whole month. They said to the public some tributes have problems with health. That's also true. We were the sickest, the weakest of the orphanage, after all. They fixed us up and trained us. Not only survival lessons for the arena, but also some classes about science, law, history, etc. By the time tributes of other years would show the gamemaker their best performance with survival skills, we also had a writing test. And before the Game, the chosen ones were called to meet the president. Cervus and Rhosy, or Snow and Coin as you know them, were very smart. I scored the highest point at medical. And nine other people. The president, he offered us a chance to survive without killing the others. Except the Careers, I believe they're called that, we were good friends. We even had a plan to suicide together at the arena, didn't want to dirty our hand by friends' blood and then the districts might receive the prize. And the president offered us a chance to survive and a chance to revenge, even our friends who were not chosen could be helped to get out of the arena alive. We agreed immediately. You would do the same, right?

So then before we went to the arena, they had put fake blood bags inside our clothes. The bloodbath was an act. From twenty four tributes that year, there were sixteen people get out alive, and the Victor, of course but he's not in the plan. We were trained at our strongest field. They decided our part in their future government."

"Why did they want people from Districts to govern the country they had won?" I cut in.

"They wanted to turn the Capitol people into ignorant idiots who were easily to control because they lived right there. Didn't want to be stab in the back. While with us, they knew we had nowhere to go and we held hatred toward the Districts. We would continue their path. They had some of us, who would appear in public, take surgeons to change their faces. That's what happened to Cervus and Rhosy. I was decided to work for their underground laboratory so I still have my face. Things went on as planned. But then Rhosy escaped. She hated the Capitol as well as the Districts. She ran away, leaving us. The Capitol realized we still had other choices and Cervus, Rhosy's lover might follow her. But he's very potential, they didn't want to lose him. They used stronger solution. Putting a chip inside our head to prevent us from doing any harm to the Capitol and holding me as hostage. I'm the little sister of the group and I can still research medical in their prison. The key would be activated only when the chips in others' head stop working, which means their deaths. Rhosy really made it harder for us. We used to be angry with her."

She has a sip of her tea while I absorb her story.

"Isn't that why he couldn't use the nuclear weapon?" I ask.

"Yes, their path can't be continued if there was no country to govern, right. They drew their planned for a really far future."

"If his path was already decided, why did Snow need to kill people to get to his position?"

"People are complicated. No matter how hard you try to train them become ignorant and carefree, there're always special cases existing. Though they wanted him to be the president, he had to earn it himself to prove his ability.

Cervus never gave up on looking for Rhosy. He had both his daughter and granddaughter be named Rhosy and have my face, hoping for her reactions. He was the president and he wanted her back, helping him. We had no idea she was a president and had another plan herself.

And then your first game happened. We heard your conversation with Peeta at the night before the game. Oh, we had bug everywhere in the training center. What he said… I realized we were so deep into revenge that we lost ourselves. We're just the pawn of some death people. We can't even point out who are the children of people betraying us. I told that to others but we're in too deep, some couldn't give up power. The chips didn't let us give up, either.

Cervus's health started going down. Finally Rhosy appeared, kidnapping little Rhosy, that poor girl and get you out of the arena. Cervus gave the government to the others. He didn't want anything other than drawing Rhosy to Capitol and finishing their promise. Kill each other. And also to stop the circle of revenge."

A silence falls down on us. Aileen slowly enjoys her tea.

"Why are you here?" Finally I ask.

"I'm here to deliver the thanks of Cervus and also my apology. Several of my researches turned out to be used as poisons. One of them is the one they used on Peeta. And I want someone to know the whole story of Cervus and Rhosy, of us. We're not innocent but neither do the districts. We're just pawns and we had our reasons. Deep down, I still think people get what they deserve. I want to pass the truth to someone." Aileen says.

"I don't think you need to apology, Aileen. Now, what are you gonna do?"

"Breathe some fresh air of freedom then find somewhere to die." She shrugs. "I have no regret."

"No, why don't you stay with us and teach me medical? I want to become a doctor." From nowhere, Prim runs in, eagerly grab Aileen's arm. Her face wets with tears. She heard everything.

"I have been alone for a long time. I just can't be with people anymore. But thank you, Prim." Aileen gently says. I stand up and help Prim to a chair. Aileen gets up.

"Katniss, you still don't get it?" She asks.

"What?" I'm dumbfounded.

"The thanks of Cervus. Don't you understand where my prison is? Don't you understand I'm good at healing?" She smiles gently.

_I didn't lie to you… If he's truly love her, he will return… _It can't be…

"I think I see some flower blooming over that grave." Aileen looks outside the window. She says something else but I can't hear her anymore. I run out of the house, passing busy people rebuilding our district. I strip and fall some times, but quickly get up and continue running. When I reach the Meadow, first thing I see was a dandelion on the ground. How nostalgic. Then at the place where I used to leave my wild flowers, I see him standing, paying his respect to the dead.

"Peeta." I whisper, afraid that this is my delusion again. My knees fail me. I fall to the ground. That catches his attention. He turns and sees me.

"Katniss?"

Peeta runs to me, helps me to stand up. I run my trembling fingers on his face. He's real. This warmness under my hands, these blue gentle eyes looking at me lovingly, the bright smile that can bring light and hope back to my life like the first dandelion of the spring. And these strong arms which can secure my fire, can be the steady branch for the Mockingjay to return. They're all real. I burst into tears, burying my face in his chest.

"Peeta... Peeta..." That's all I can make it out of my throat.

"I'm here, Katniss. Everything is alright." He whispers softly. Only Peeta can make me believe it, that life can go on and thing can be good again. Though I believe he knows it now, I still try to stop my choking to whisper what I should have say long time ago.

"I love you, Peeta."


	42. Epilogue

**Thank you for being with me through this story. I have to say this is the first time I wrote something this long. So it might causes confusion or conflicts with itself ****somewhere**(:shame:). And also the characters might become a little different with origin (it's a fanfiction, after all :shame:). Please forgive me for such things and I hope you enjoyed it. Finally I want to say, life is beautiful and I wish you a long and happy life. :)

**Disclaimer: ****every rights belong to Suzanne Collins.**

**Epilogue**

A year after the end of the revolution, Paylor has a monument built for remembrance of all the people died in the war. Name of them ware carved in the wall without distinguishing which side they were on. Just people we lost for freedom. Peeta and I have our own way to remember the death. I got the idea from our family's plant book. Not only names, I gather photos if I can and if not, Peeta would draw, and then I write down things we should never forget about them. Family comes first. My father's hunting lessons. Peeta's father with the cookies. Johanna's laugh. Cinna and Portia with their excellent designs. Boggs looked at his son's picture before every mission. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. Rhosy spread her arms to cover my mother and my sister from the bomb. Cecelia with her children at her second Reaping day, her sister's back. Haymitch and Finnick join us with their stories about children they had to mentor and friends. On and on. I try to write down names of all tributes of seventy five years of Hunger Games. And finally I write down Aileen's story, even my hallucination with Cervus – Snow. They should be remembered as people who were ruined by the Games and for their story wouldn't be repeated.

Months passes…

With the transportation becomes more convenient and cheaper, Gale visits us and Madge every months. He keeps his promise with me about his relationship with Madge. They take good care of each other. His face has gone soften, he smiles more. He even laughs but the sounds scare the children even his so he rarely does. We also witness the young love blooming between Prim and Rory Hawthorn. Receiving his mother's permission, when he reaches the age of eighteen, Rory comes back to Twelve and worked for a factory. He's serious about their relationship. Well, if he was not, he would have to have a talk with my bow and arrows. Actually, three pairs of us have the toast together. No camera, no pressure and most important, no confusion about feeling. I'm truly happy to be with my love.

The whole Panem changes vigorously. The fences between Districts were taken down. The borders exist for administration, not to divide. Hospitals and farms and factories were built in every district. We have our products for ourselves before exporting them out to other districts and to Capitol. But there's no lacking ever. People work hard and happily receive what their efforts deserve.

Years passes…

…

I once had a dream of a place where Peeta's children would be safe and now I witness it every day. They play in the Meadow, right next to the mass grave of District Twelve. They have mixed figures between the Seam and the Town children. Though they don't really understand what the Seam and the Town are anymore because in the new District Twelve, there's no longer the difference. Dark hair, blue eyes or blond curls, gray eyes, they are mine and Peeta's, Madge and Gale's, Prim and Rory's. Happy and safe. And before they go back home, they will leave wild flowers on the grave, pay their respect.

It cost me more time than my little sister to finally have my babies. I'm still scared of bad things might happen to them in the future. Then I realize, there's no guarantee for it. No one knows the future. But denying their right to know the goodness in this life is not right. There're miracle and beautiful things for them to know. And Peeta wanted them so badly though he never pressed me. Also, I'd like to know the birth of human so that I can really understand the death. The two times I held my newborn babies in my arms, I cried out my heart, thinking of people we lost over years. People always say I'm overprotective. However, my children do just fine. They're brave like their father. When we feel the time is right, Peeta and I show them the book. Between dark stories, we tell them other stories about goodness, about people's kindness, about beautiful things worth fighting for, living and dying for.

After nights of weeping for the past, new days will come. From the death and ruins, seeds of life will rise again. Life is both hard and beautiful. With Peeta beside me, I wake up every morning, ready to live it the fullest way.


End file.
